Intelligible Paranoia
by YourFairyGodfather
Summary: Or, "Five Times In Which Wes and David Are Completely Bewildered By McKinley." Epilogue: Wes and David are back at Dalton and feeling better after their scare at McKinley, but one final piece of evidence is about to change the game completely.
1. Chapter 1

The introduction to what will be a 5-6 chapter story (I'm thinking bonus at the end).

End of Season 2: did anyone else nearly fall off their chair right near the end? Just me? Right. This idea has been in my head for a bit, and I think it's time to get the ball rolling, especially since I don't think we'll be seeing too much of the Warblers next fall :/

Also! A very special, sincere apology to the very kind people who have reviewed, both here and on Tumblr, that I haven't gotten back to. I normally try to be much more on the ball about letting you all know how appreciative I am, but…I kinda have mono right now, and that whole fiasco has been cutting swath in my internet time…

…aaaanyways. I don't own Glee. But I do own a computer, so send me internet hugs—I promise they're not contagious!

* * *

><p><span>Prologue: <span>The Calm Before…

"We need to talk."

Wes looked up at David in surprise, pausing mid-way through packing up his bag as the Warblers—free from practice at last—trickled out of the hall. David was looking uncharacteristically serious—and had been for the entire meeting, Wes realized suddenly. "What about?" he asked cautiously.

David glanced at the door, checking to make sure no one else was listening in. "You know Warbler Kurt," he began.

Wes raised an eyebrow. "What about him? I thought he seemed to be settling in nicely."

And he really did. After a somewhat disastrous first week, Wes had been a little wary about their newest recruit. Fortunately, Kurt had quickly turned it around, and the two rehearsals since had shown a marked upswing in their countertenor's attitude and ability to play (and blend) well with others.

David shook his head. "Yeah, no, he is," he agreed disinterestedly, "that's not the problem. It's that school he's from, William McKinley. The one we're competing against at Sectionals. There's something…off, going on over there, and I'm starting to get a little suspicious."

Wes set his bag down on the table. "David," he began carefully, "we've talked about this. Kurt was a terrible spy, and it was obvious his heart wasn't in it. He offered to postpone his membership until after the competition, and the council—which you are on, you may recall—unanimously decided against it. I seriously doubt he has any plans to sabotage us, and the New Directions wouldn't be so foolish as to try anything like that again, after their last attempt ended in our recruiting one of their top singers."

David sighed impatiently. "No, it's not New Directions," he clarified. "Well, I mean, it _is _New Directions, but it's not _just _New Directions—it's the whole school. Maybe even the whole town." He made a face. "And wow, I just realized how terrible their name sounds when you say it quickly. Their club has been active for a year and a half—how has nobody over there figured this out yet?"

Wes looked slightly pained. "David. Have you been watching midnight reruns of The X-Files again, because I thought I explained to you—"

"Wes, I am not kidding," David interrupted, looking frazzled. "Just listen to me for a minute, all right? I'm not saying that they're spies or cheaters, or anything horrible. It's not like that. I'm just really concerned about some of the goings-on I've been hearing about that school, particularly some of the escapades surrounding or involving the Glee club. And I think we have a right to be somewhat worried: Kurt's sudden _mid-semester _transfer that nobody seems to know the details about, he and Blaine spending all their time over there, etc.

"_And_," he added, "Their musicians can play anything on command. Perfectly. In sync, same key, zero practice time. This is a school with _terrible funding for the arts_—please explain to me how I'm the only one who seems to find this information even slightly alarming!"

Wes quickly reached out to David, who had worked himself into a minor panic, and pressed down firmly on his shoulders. "Okay," he said soothingly, "calm down. Look, we'll…I don't know. We'll investigate, get to the bottom of this. All right?" He made eye contact with David, shaking him gently. "I'm not saying we'll do anything as untoward as spying, but…you're right that we ought to look into the situation. If only because of Blaine and Kurt. Okay?"

David's breathing had returned to normal. He nodded, and Wes sighed, releasing him and picking up his bag. Silently, the pair started for the door.

"…_aaaand _now I'm beset with both paranoia about the musicians and an overwhelming desire to waste hours watching Syfy. Thanks a lot, David."

Almost silently.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter One in what will be a 5-6 chapter story.

I'm sorry! I meant to have this up earlier in the week, but I restarted classes on Tuesday, which means I literally spend 15 hours a day working and getting schooled. The rest of the time is pretty much cramming vitamins and sleeping :/

Also! I have a project I'm running on my tumblr for the next 2 weeks ( yourfairygodfather .tumblr .com ) that I could use some feedback on. So if you like poetry or puppies or unicorns, please drop on by :]

I own nothing. It's so tragic.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter One: Gucci, Fendi, et Prada<strong>

Really, it was entirely Kurt's fault that Wes even noticed the discrepancy.

After New Directions blew the Warblers out of the water, choreography-wise, at Sectionals, it was unanimously voted on by the Warblers that they needed more complicated dancing in order to avoid being thoroughly trounced at Regionals.

Well, unanimous except for Jeff, who had a tendency to trip over non-existent objects (and whose dancing resembled a drunken moose). His vote didn't count.

Possessing a keen eye for detail and a sixth sense regarding the mistakes for others as he did, then, Wes couldn't help but notice that not only was Kurt far and beyond the fastest Warbler to retain all of the new choreography, but that he was actually quite good: somehow, he was able to pick up each new step or eight-count on the first try without any noticeable difficulty. While the others grew tired and stumbled over each other (much to Thad's annoyance—he was next to Grant, who wore a size 12 ½ shoe), or moved hesitantly and without much grace, Kurt continued to hit his marks each time without error or complaint.

And given the amount of complaining going on at the three hour Sunday practice, Wes couldn't help but feel a smidgen of gratitude for that. Because if he heard one more grumble insinuating that he was a Nazi or a tyrannical dictator…

Well. He really didn't want to go down in history as the first Council Member to be stripped of his position for Inappropriate Gavel-Induced Skull Damage since the unfortunate 'Ruby Tuesday' incident of 1967.

Naturally then, it was Wes's duty to praise Kurt for his fine dancing skills, and to politely inquire if he was enrolled in any classes or studio programs back in Lima. Kurt, blushing at the rare-but-deserved compliment, explained that he had been forcibly recruited by his old school's maniacal cheerleading coach, who believed that blasting her squad with cold water from a standard issue fire hose was a practical learning tool for Cheerios struggling to remember their routines.

"Also," he added somewhat shyly, "once you spend an entire week in ten inch heels, normal choreography is a lot more manageable."

Wes ignored the part about the fire hose—someday, perhaps, he'd learn to appreciate Kurt's frankly bizarre sense of humor—and immediately asked for clarification on the ten inch heels part. Kurt's brief explanation, involving a friend's identity crisis and something about Vocal Adrenaline, made no sense. Somehow though, he gathered, the situation involved the entire Glee club dressing up as either a member of Kiss, or in a Lady Gaga costume.

Wes had no use for Kiss, and wasn't really a fan of Lady Gaga. But this he had to see.

At his request, Kurt pulled his phone out of his blazer pocket—the boy was permanently attached to the thing, so Wes was no longer surprised by the rhinestones—and tapped the screen several times before handing it over to Wes.

Holy. Shit.

As Wes took a closer look at the group photo in utter disbelief—was that Kurt's stepbrother in a red rubber shower curtain? _Where did they even make those?_—Thad called out to Kurt for some assistance: Jeff had somehow manage to mix up the last set of choreography so thoroughly that none of the six on-looking Warblers could figure out where to begin detangling. Kurt, paling at the sight of Jeff's attempt at a grapevine, hurried over.

Leaving Wes with his phone. And five minutes to scroll through the photos.

* * *

><p>"I'm telling you, David, it was unbelievable," Wes was reiterating an hour later, still slightly shell-shocked. "I lost count of how many different sets of costumes they had, but there were at least two dozen wardrobe changes in that photo album."<p>

It had taken all of Wes's considerable acting skills to give Kurt his phone back without betraying his calm exterior demeanor. He had seen nearly 100 pictures of Kurt's old Glee club-group shots, pairs and trios, obviously candid photo snaps-and the revelation that McKinley had access to so much costuming was an unpleasant one.

David, who had an exam the next day and had only grudgingly allowed Wes to distract him while he studied, looked skeptical. "Are you sure they were real costumes?" he asked, continuing to highlight his physics notes as he conversed with Wes. "Maybe they all coordinated their own clothes, things that they already had. I mean, how many clothing stores are there in Lima, really?"

Wes shook his head. "For some of them, maybe," he allowed, "but definitely not for all of them. David—there was a girl dressed in oversized, translucent bubbles. Their Lady Gaga costumes were indistinguishable from the authentic pieces. And I'm sorry, but I just can't believe that every member of that club personally owns a leather jacket. Or that the girl who was pregnant last year just happened to have all of that matching stuff in her maternity wardrobe." He shook his head again, hoping for a sudden burst of logic that would explain everything to his satisfaction. It didn't come. "Their costume budget must be astronomical," he concluded uncertainly.

David, equally unsettled, pushed his notes aside. "That's impossible," he reminded Wes. "They literally have no budget. Kurt said they actually had a bake sale to pay for their bus ride to Sectionals last year, because their principal wouldn't allocate them any funding."

"_I know_," Wes stressed. "They have no money, it's impossible, they shouldn't have even been able to afford the girl's dresses at _this _year's Sectionals competition. I know, David. But listen to this: I checked the timestamps on those pictures. They were all taken within the last year and a half, and most of them don't align with competition dates."

He paused to let that sink in.

3…2…1…

"They dress in _full costume for rehearsals?_" David's pencil mug flew off the desk and rolled across the floor. David, still flailing, didn't notice. "They dress in full costume, much of which is purchased somewhere _specifically for performance_, and they have to sell baked goods to pay for a bus for four hours?"

He ran his hands roughly over his scalp. Wes moved the trashcan out from underneath the desk and placed it in front of David, just in case.

"And—the last year and a half, you said?" Wes nodded, knowing David well enough to know exactly where this was going. David exhaled sharply. "Okay," he began mumbling, "eighteen months, factor out five for summer and school vacations, at least two dozen costumes, maybe more, factor in at least four months of extra costs for maternity wear—"

David leaned back in his chair, covering his face with his hands. "Wes, this is not okay," he mumbled through his fingers, as Wes fetched him a Red Bull from the mini-fridge. "I am not okay with this math. Either one of them is insanely rich and has a grudge against public transportation, or some of those pictures are photo-shopped." Wes popped the can open with a _hiss_ and handed it to David, who took a grateful swallow.

"I mean, I know I was the one who said that that school was ridiculous and probably bending the laws of reality," he continued, downplaying his previous hysterics with a wave of his hand (and sloshing his energy drink on the carpet as Wes watched with some concern). "But this is math. And I'm sorry, but my tolerance of disbelief cannot stretch that far. _Math__, _Wesley."

David was taking Advanced Calculus, and was so brilliant at it that his teacher occasionally used his tests as answer keys while grading the rest of the students' papers. He had a healthy respect for the power of math.

Wes settled back in his chair. "So what do you propose we do?" he asked as David loosened his tie, clearly worn out by the events of the past three minutes. "We can't ask Kurt directly; it'll look like we're fishing for information on the competition—"

"Which we are," David interrupted.

"—and I'd rather not put him in that position," Wes finished, ignoring the interjection.

David shrugged. "School website?" he wondered out loud. "Our performance videos are posted on the Dalton webpage; theirs might be up as well. We can see if the quality is similar to what you saw on Kurt's phone. Verify their authenticity, if you will, or see if this is just some elaborate in-joke of McKinley's."

* * *

><p>Half an hour later, they were still stumped. Not only was the McKinley website completely unhelpful (not to mention seriously out of date and obviously student-hacked), but further searching on Youtube, MySpace, and Facebook yielded nothing of relevance.<p>

There were, however, a number of gossip videos hosted by a—frankly? rather unpleasant—McKinley student that featured the Glee club, and Wes was determined to propose a ban on frozen drinks within the rehearsal space the very next time Kurt was absent from practice.

"This isn't working," David complained, bringing Wes's thoughts back into the present. "We're going to have to break into Kurt's laptop."

Wes stared. "David, that's seriously unethical," he scolded. "I want to get to the bottom of this as well, but I'm not invading his privacy like that. Besides," he pointed out, "we don't even know if McKinley _has _any video footage from their rehearsals. We could be searching for something that doesn't even exist."

David looked at him with a deadly serious expression. "Wesley. Their female soloist has _571 videos_ on MySpace. They have rehearsal footage. And we will find it." He slumped back in his chair, clearly annoyed. "Even if you won't let me break into Kurt's laptop," he grumbled. "Seriously, you're making this so much harder than it needs to be.

"What are the chances that there's anyone at this school who's video-stalked Kurt and is naïve enough to just hand us their computer?"

* * *

><p>"Blaine? It's Wes, open up."<p>

Ten minutes later found Wes outside Blaine's door, listening with some amusement at the sounds of papers scattering and Sondheim-blasting speakers being hastily turned down.

"It's open!" Blaine called out, and Wes opened the door to see Blaine 'working' at his desk (his textbook was upside down). Wes hid a smile.

"Warbler Blaine, I require your assistance," he stated warmly, causing Blaine to sit up straighter in his seat. "Nothing official, I'm afraid," he clarified, skillfully allowing a note of hesitance to creep into his voice. "I'm afraid it's more…personal."

Blaine nodded easily. "Of course," he agreed, leaning forward. "What is it?"

Wes dropped the Council Demeanor. "David had another fight with his girlfriend," he lied, "and is driving me crazy with his monosyllabic sass. Could you please…?" He looked at Blaine beseechingly.

Blaine lit up. "Does he need relationship advice, or a self-esteem boost?" he asked, a little too eagerly.

Wes bit back a grin. David was going to kill him. "I honestly couldn't say," he admitted. "Why not try both? And if he wont open up to you, try singing some Mariah Carey—I've found it really gets him to open up, emotionally.

"And speaking of music, can I go through your iTunes? The Council was hoping for some fresh ideas for Regionals, and I'm growing bored with my own collection."

* * *

><p>Wes waited a perfunctory three minutes after Blaine bounded out the door, cheerfully reminding Wes to lock the door if he left before Blaine returned. Then the search began: browser history, bookmarked sites, iTunes, Media players, video folders. He considered looking in the picture files as well, but decided against it—it wouldn't tell him anything new, and Blaine had taken about 500 pictures at the last Warbler picnic, just because. He was going to be <em>terrible<em> when he had his own children.

Wes clicked through every folder he could think of that could be potentially relevant: nothing. Not even gay porn, which Wes was half afraid he'd find, and then become unable to look Blaine in the eye until 2017.

He did have a fairly decent selection of movie musicals, however.

Wes glanced at the clock. He'd been at Blaine's computer for about 15 minutes, and David had guaranteed him at least half an hour. He had time to watch a couple scenes, at least. Picking a file, Wes double-clicked and sat back.

And nearly fell out of Blaine's chair.

_Oh. Holy. Shit._

* * *

><p>"I hope you're pleased with yourself," David griped as Wes threw himself into the room and leaned heavily against the door. "I never want to hear a man sing 'Always Be My Baby' ever again, under any circumstances." He frowned, picking up on Wes's pallor. "You look awful," he observed, "what happened? Did you find the videos?" His eyes widened. "Oh, no. You found them, and it's worse than we thought. They robbed an ATM or have an alcoholic, eccentric benefactor, don't they?"<p>

Wes sobered immediately. "That's ridiculous," he pointed out. "Of course not. And no, I didn't find them. At least, not all of them."

He pulled the flash drive from his pocket. "You're going to want to see this."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Two in what will be a 5-6 chapter story.

So, the cliffhanger…was unpopular. I'm sorry, it was the first one I had ever done, and I promise not to do it again. At least, not without a Giant Neon Warning at the top of the chapter. Here, have some Wes *and* David point of view!

In the interest of plot points, kindly note that this chapter takes place sometime between Special Education and the Sue Sylvester Shuffle; go ahead and pick whatever month suits you :] Also, it's entirely possible that I drop some profanity toward the end—if that offends you, go ahead and skim the last two sections.

I own nothing. Dapper Sadness.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Two: Cos not everything is uniform (school uniform)<strong>

Wes was the type of person who enjoyed verbal precision. Everyone was entitled to their share of grammatical errors, certainly, but there was really no excuse for frequent and malignant misuse of language.

Consequently it was with some reluctance that he, after viewing the video pilfered from Blaine's computer with David, grudgingly classified the silence in the room as 'deafening'.

David was the first to break it, several moments later. "A working elevator. Seriously. I can't even—Wes, what just happened?"

Wes nodded in agreement. "I'm willfully suspending my disbelief over that one. The video quality is fairly mediocre—it could be a remarkably convincing special effect—"

"Wes," David interrupted, clearly about to argue.

"_It could be a remarkably convincing special effect," _Wes repeated, tone clipped, "_because if McKinley really had a working elevator onstage, my brain would explode." _Closing his eyes, he lightly massaged his temples. David, recognizing the signs of Wes nearing his breaking point, wisely remained silent.

"All right," Wes exhaled, after taking a minute to calm his Sorely Tested nerves. "I think we can safely reach the conclusion that this video invalidates all our theories regarding photo shopping and the like."

"Leaving us with absolutely no explanations whatsoever, besides the reason Warbler Kurt spends so much time and deep conditioner on his hair," David deduced. He looked back at the screen, shuddering slightly. "That must have been a sobering look into 2061."

"You have to admire their authenticity, in a horrifying sort of way," Wes allowed. "I mean, they're clearly still in rehearsals here, what with half the performers still using scripts, and Rocky completely derailing the scene to ask for longer underwear, but the—"

"Wait, stop," David interrupted suddenly. "There was a student in his underwear? In a _public school auditorium? _How on earth was that allowed?"

"How on earth did you miss that?" Wes countered, "They were bright gold."

"I was frozen in shock and disbelief," David sniffed. "I repeat, how did nobody go to prison or lose their teaching license for that?"

"And how didn't anyone get suspended for walking around school property in their underwear?" Wes mused. "I recognize that we're somewhat out of touch with the issue, attending an institution that requires uniforms, but I'm given to understand that dress codes, at the very least, require students to be dressed."

David nodded forcefully. "And some of those wigs couldn't possibly have been allowed," he agreed. "Not unless it was Halloween." He paused. "Wes, when was that video filmed?"

Wes frowned. "I can't recall, what…" He trailed off as David grabbed the laptop and began typing rapidly. Whenever David was concentrating on something, he was impossible to distract—it was best to just let him finish before attempting to recapture his attention.

He didn't have long to wait. "Last week of October," David crowed triumphantly, turning the screen so that Wes could see the article displayed. "I remembered that horrible gossip blogger reporting something about a student parading down the hall in nothing but a pair of briefs."

Wes skimmed the entry. "While calling the nearly-naked Lurch into the office for a metaphorical dressing down looked like a step toward probable suspension, Principal Figgins continued to live up to his reputation as the most Ambivalent Disciplinarian in Ohio, and allowed this terrifying display of manflesh go unpunished," he read out loud.

David shook his head. "All right, so we know that they teach English, but not journalism, at that school, and that apparently _walking around sans clothing_ doesn't even result in detention. Wesley," David whined helplessly, "this is getting even more out of control. Every time we learn something new, I feel like clawing my brain out of my ears in sheer disbelief." He gave Wes a pained look. "And there's nothing we can do about it!" he complained. "We can't ask Kurt, there's nothing on the internet that isn't completely insane, we can't ask _Blaine_ because then he'll know you hacked his computer—"

Wes coughed meaningfully.

"—that I made you hack his computer," David amended, "and we have no idea what's actually happening. Do you realize the extent to which the situation could be escalating without our knowledge? They could be shooting people out of cannons, or going feral—destroying cars and starting locker room fights and trapping people in portable toilets and—"

"David!" Wes interrupted quickly, alarmed at David's spiraling. "That's preposterous, all right? None of that is happening at McKinley, and you need to calm down. Here." In a well-practiced gesture, Wes fished a bottle of Pepto Bismol out of the middle desk drawer and tossed it to David. David took a large sip, shuddering at the taste.

"Ok?" Wes asked, and David nodded. "All right. Now, I agree—we don't know what's going on over there. But you know what I think? Maybe that's a good thing." Seeing David's incredulous expression, Wes held up a hand to stop him from interrupting. "I know that we were hoping to look out for Blaine and Kurt, but it seems to me that nothing really dangerous is going on over there," he explained. "Ludicrous, yes, but not truly harmful. And what can we really do from here anyway, besides drive ourselves crazy with speculation and give you an ulcer. Maybe we should just let it go."

Before David could respond, there was a knock on the door. Both boys looked up, just as Blaine opened the door and peered inside. "David, could you—oh hey Wes, good, you're both here. Could you tell me if we have rehearsal this Saturday? Kurt's family is moving to their new house, and I was going to offer to help."

"Just Sunday evening," Wes replied, distracted by the burgeoning gleam in David's eye. That was never good. That was—

"Are his parents staying in Lima?" David asked in a suspiciously polite tone.

Blaine, being Blaine, didn't notice. "Yeah, I guess their new place is only a couple miles from Kurt's old house," he answered easily. "They're moving everything but the furniture themselves, so a lot of Kurt's friends from McKinley are pitching in and helping. Kurt has a make-up test Friday afternoon, so I thought I'd drive in on Saturday morning with him and lend a hand."

Wes really did not like the look on David's face.

"That sounds like a fine idea," David decreed, smiling even more widely. "Wes and I will follow you in my car."

Yep, there it was.

* * *

><p>Although they had arranged to get to Kurt's old house around ten, Wes and David didn't end up pulling into the driveway until nearly eleven. They had stopped for coffee halfway to Lima, and Kurt had nearly chewed the barista's face off when she informed him (rather snippily, in Kurt's defense) that they were out of one of the key ingredients in his favorite drink. Blaine had been disgustingly charming, trying to calm Kurt down ("Moving day is stressful, I know, but it's going to be okay, I promise. You, me, and Mercedes will move all of your things ourselves—nobody is going to touch your Versace.") and keep the four of them from getting a lifetime ban from the coffee shop ("I am so, incredibly sorry about all that. Please, no, I insist on apologizing to the manager personally. Do you have a tip jar somewhere, I don't see it but I'm sure it's right in front of me—how about I give this directly to you, for now?")<p>

Needless to say, Wes was beyond grateful to be in a separate car.

When they finally got to Lima, Kurt wasn't faring much better, though the caffeine seemed to have mellowed out his sass, at least. He was standing on the porch with his father, who seemed to be updating him on the group's progress, while three vaguely familiar-looking boys—Kurt's stepbrother among them—loaded boxes into the back of a truck.

Blaine, seeing David and Wes climb out of the car, came bounding over. "Everything's going well so far," he informed them, looking far more awake than he had any right to look, caffeine fix or not. "The guys and a few of the girls are loading and driving the cars, and Artie and the rest of the girls are with Kurt's stepmom at the new place, unpacking."

Wes nodded absently, watching the New Directions boys as they secured the boxes with bungee cords. Besides Kurt's brother—Finn, he remembered suddenly—there was a boy with blindingly yellow hair and a guy with a mohawk. All three were wearing gloves and lettermen jackets, and seemed, besides the hair…well, relatively normal.

Not that Wes had expected them to breathe fire or anything, but still.

The one with the mohawk looked up at them. "Hey, Pixie," hey called suddenly, "grab the tarp from the garage."

Blaine rolled his eyes, and Finn elbowed his friend. "Dude, his name is Blaine, be nice," Wes heard him mutter.

"He's been calling me that all week," Blaine confided, "ever since I asked if he was named for Oberon's fairy servant in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. I guess they don't teach that play at McKinley."

David and Wes exchanged a look as Blaine headed off to the garage, presumably to get the tarp. "Did he actually just say that he asked Mohawk Guy if he was named after a fairy?" David asked uneasily.

Wes nodded back, similarly unnerved. Protecting Blaine from Lima might be a more complicated job than they'd initially thought.

They weren't left alone for long: Kurt, finished with his conversation, came striding down the driveway appearing visibly calmer. "So it turns out that my Dad has yet to pack his clothes," he told Wes and David wryly. "He says he knew I would take one look at his folding and redo it anyway, so why bother." He glanced down at a clipboard—_when did he get that_, Wes wondered, _he only beat us here by a few minutes_—before looking down at Wes and David. "I'll be busy doing that for a while, so would you two mind getting the boxes down from the attic?" he asked hopefully. "I'll send the girls up to bring them outside when they get back."

David's looked surprised. "Is there anything heavy up there?" he asked delicately. Privately, Wes concurred—he was all for gender equality, and perhaps it was true that he and David weren't particularly strapping specimens of He-men. Still, something about making girls carry heavy boxes all that way didn't sit right with him.

Kurt, inexplicably, began to smile. "Feel free to help them if you like, but those three will be just fine," he assured them. "Just go up the stairs and turn left; the attic is the last door."

Before they could leave, though, Kurt shifted uncomfortably. "I—I'm sorry if this comes across as a little demanding," he said to David's shoes. "I really appreciate you guys coming out to help, you really didn't have to. But…could you just, be careful with those boxes?" he asked, finally looking up at Wes and David with an expression that Wes couldn't quite place. "Most of the stuff up there was my mother's, and the two boxes closest to the stairs are Carole's, things that belonged to Finn's Dad," he explained.

Wes tried to keep his expression neutral, but it was difficult. He'd known that Kurt's father had recently remarried, but he had just assumed that his parents were divorced, not that his mother was—

"We'll be extra careful," he said reassuringly, as David patted Kurt on the shoulder. Kurt gave them a watery smile and a soft 'thank you' before disappearing into the house.

* * *

><p>True to their word, David and Wes were particularly careful not to drop anything while carrying the boxes down the attic steps. Nothing was especially heavy, and there wasn't as much up there as David had expected—12, maybe 15 boxes total. It wasn't until Wes set the last box down in the hall that they realized that the mystery girls had yet to arrive. Shrugging, Wes picked his box back up and started down the staircase. David was just about to follow suit when his cell phone went off in his pocket. He fished it out and glanced at the screen: <em>Blaine.<em>

"Warbler Blaine," he answered, only maybe-kinda-sorta imitating Wes's voice. "Not to turn into my mother or anything, but you couldn't have just opened the door?"

Blaine laughed. "Not unless I wanted to fall out," he replied, "I'm in the car. Kurt and I are taking a dresser that he doesn't trust the movers with over to the new house. Are the girls back yet?"

David strode through an empty bedroom in order to look out one of the front windows. His car was the only one still in the driveway. "Not yet," he told Blaine, who relayed the information to Kurt.

"Kurt says that they should be there any minute," Blaine answered. "Most of the guys are unpacking at the new place, but we'll be back with the Navigator, and Finn and Puck are going to drive the truck back over."

Puck—_that_ was Mohawk Guy's name. David closed his eyes in despair—Blaine was kind of an idiot when it came to social interaction sometimes. Good thing he was so dapper and pretty.

"Anyway, when you're finished with the attic, can you move the boxes in the basement upstairs? Don't put them outside," he warned, "the only ones left down there are Kurt's clothes, and he's kind of fussy about them." David heard Kurt squawk indignantly in the background. "Oh stop it, you know you are," Blaine shot back fondly.

David rolled his eyes. Privately, he agreed with Blaine—Kurt had once retied Nick's tie five times in a row because he claimed that the knot was on an angle and therefore distracting him. But still, there was only so much sexual repression a man could take before lunch, and he could see where this was going.

"Flirt on your own time, Anderson," he ordered, "I'm getting the clothes."

"I'm not—" David hung up on Blaine and shook his head—half fondly, half exasperated.

Pretty, dapper idiot.

Calling out the entrance to Wes that he was starting on the basement, David found the right door and jogged down the steps. Even if the girls didn't make it back immediately, he should be able to get Kurt's clothes upstairs fairly quickly, and then he could help Wes finish moving the—

David stopped at the bottom of the steps in shock.

There were twenty-three boxes of clothing, painstakingly labeled, neatly lined up across the basement floor.

Mind officially blown, David approached the boxes with caution, as though afraid one of them might contain a bomb. Slowly, he knelt down and examined the label on the first box: _Armani, MJ. Fall & Winter._

David, when out of uniform, was a vaguely stylish dresser. Consequently, he had a pretty exact idea of how much the box in front of him was worth, even if Kurt had packed it fairly sparsely. And if even a third of the other boxes were also filled with couture…

David stumbled from box to box, reading labels. _Galliano. Prada. McQueen. Citizens of Humanity (summer casual). _Nearly every box contained either runway-caliber designers or expensive brands. In fact, the only box that probably wasn't worth as much as David's Hybrid was the one marked _Coveralls & Letterman Jacket._

Feeling suddenly lightheaded, David sat down on the immaculate floor, attempting to analyze this new development.

* * *

><p>Wes was upstairs, fresh from his third trip of carrying boxes to the porch, when he heard the footsteps. Assuming it was David, he didn't turn around. "Do you want to take a break until the girls get here?" he asked, trying to keep the weariness out of his voice.<p>

"Okay. Which girls are coming over?"

That…was certainly not David's voice. Unless David had recently become a strangely laconic-sounding female. And Wes would like to think he would have noticed such a development.

Turning around, Wes recognized the newcomer as one of Kurt's New Directions friends: the pretty blonde who had danced absolute _rings_ around everyone else at Sectionals.

And not that it mattered in the slightest, because he was a gentleman with a girlfriend, and she was both the competition and under pseudo-investigation by himself and David. But she was wearing a cheerleading uniform.

Wes sort of had a thing for uniforms. In an entirely upstanding, completely-not-relevant-to-the-current-situation sort of manner.

Realizing that he hadn't actually answered the girl in the thirty seconds since he had turned around, Wes recovered his manners and offered his hand. "You are, I'm guessing. Kurt said that there were three of you coming to help with the rest of the boxes?"

The girl nodded matter-of-factly. "Quinn twisted her ankle though, so she's not helping. I thought you were a Warbler."

Wes blinked slightly at the abrupt transition. "I am," he assured her, wondering what he'd done or said to make her think otherwise. "David and I are on the council, as a matter of fact."

He tried to keep his voice as nonchalant as possible while saying that. Nick, who was inexplicably the best of all his classmates at Talking to Girls, firmly maintained that while girls appreciated leadership and accomplishment, bragging about either was a definite misstep.

She didn't look convinced. "You don't look like your brother," she countered. "And you're not wearing your suit."

Wes looked down at his clothing, a little more than slightly confused. He had a brother, yes, but Alex was seven years old, and the McKinley girl couldn't possibly know him. Unless she meant Blaine? But that was absurd, why would she think that them both being Warblers meant they were related? And suit? He wasn't wearing his—

_Ah, of course_. "We don't wear our uniforms on the weekend unless we have a rehearsal or performance scheduled," he explained. That was a common error—half of the shop owners in Westerville didn't even recognize him without his blazer. "Just like you wouldn't wear your cheerleading uniform unless you had a practice or a game," he added, nodding deferentially to the girl's outfit. "Did you just come from practice, or does it start later?"

Now the girl was the one who looked confused. "Quinn said we didn't have practice today," she said, wrinkling her forehead. "It's Coach Sylvester's weekend at the hospital—once a month she goes and steals lab samples so that she can be prepared to launch biological warfare if her political demands continue to go unmet by 2013."

She said this all in a very curious voice, as though she was directly quoting someone else. Wes frowned, unnerved. It seems Kurt wasn't the only one from McKinley with a warped, vague sense of humor.

Although…Kurt's joke at Sunday's rehearsal had been about the cheerleading coach as well. And, Wes realized suddenly, he was alone with a member of New Directions who seemed willing to talk to him, and not particularly shy about asking and answering questions. This might be the best opportunity he would get to do some field research.

He'd start off easy. "Why are you wearing your uniform today?" he asked politely.

The girl stared at him. "It's my uniform," she answered, not illuminating anything at all.

This might be more difficult than he thought. "Why does Coach Sylvester make you wear them, if you aren't cheering?" he tried, changing his focus slightly. Even if both Kurt and Brittany's statements had been patently ridiculous, maybe this Coach character was associated with the weirdness at McKinley somehow.

She continued to stare at him, features unusually blank. "We're Cheerios," she explained, once again not explaining anything at all.

Wes sighed. He needed an interpreter who was fluent in Girl. Or maybe a new approach; the girl hadn't become reticent until he had begun questioning her.

Possibly because he kept calling her The Girl in his head. Where on earth had his manners gone? "My name is Wes," he offered, "what's yours?"

To his surprise, the girl frowned at him. "Santana says that if a boy asks a lot of personal questions, he could be a predator, and I should run away and scream for help," she informed him. "How many is a lot?"

Unconsciously, Wes backed up a few feet. "Who's Santana?" he wondered out loud.

* * *

><p>Five boxes later, David still hadn't gotten over his alarm. In fact, it had only gotten worse with each trip up the stairs. He wasn't sure what should be the biggest cause of concern: that Kurt owned enough designer clothing to run his own show at any Fashion Week in the world? That he'd been able to afford them all, despite the fact that his dad owned a garage, and that the rumor mill was pretty certain that the Hummels were just barely scraping by on their tuition payments? That <em>Kurt<em> owned a _Letterman Jacket?_

He was distracted from his ruminations by a loud crashing sound, followed by a girlish shriek above his head. "Motherfucker! Who left these boxes just sitting here?"

David gulped. That voice was most definitely female—Kurt's friends had arrived. And he knew that, in his distraction, he hadn't been particularly careful about where he had left the boxes upstairs.

It was probably too much to hope that Wes had made a similar error, and that he was about to get yelled at instead.

…maybe he'd just stay down here, until Blaine and Kurt got back.

* * *

><p>Wes jumped, startled, at the profanity-laced cry from downstairs. The girl, however, merely smiled. "That's Santana," she explained. "Don't worry, if she were really mad, she'd be yelling in Hispanic."<p>

Wes didn't even have a chance to process the offensiveness of that statement. "_Maldito hijo de puta!" _Santana cursed again. "Brittany, where are you?"

The girl lit up. "That's me," she chirped brightly, either not noticing or caring that her friend sounded ready to commit homicide.

And without any warning or goodbyes, the girl—Brittany—turned and bounded down the stairs.

Wes stared after her for a long moment.

…maybe he'd just stay up here, until Blaine and Kurt returned.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Three in what will be a 5-6 chapter story.

Longest chapter so far, partly to make up for the fact that it's taken me so long to write. Profuse, sincere apologies abound, but I'm so tired that I literally just stood in my kitchen for over five minutes, trying to remember what I was doing in there. (Answer—dropping a ceramic plate on my foot, then throwing away the pieces.)

So, yes. I adore and appreciate you all, and Imma go pass out now. Possibly in my Glee shirt, the only thing I own.

Also, not to get political, but remember that time that I could get married in my home state? I do too—it was awesome.

**EDIT**: A few people messaged me about spacing problems, while most people haven't seemed to come across any problems-I hope this fixes it; let me know if it's still being difficult.

* * *

><p><span>Chapter Three: Though it's the toughest case I've yet to face…<span>

After the drive home from Lima, Wes refused to talk about New Directions or McKinley for nearly three weeks.

The Excursion, as he had dubbed it in his mind, has raised more questions than it had answered—How did that really short brunette manage to talk so incessantly without passing out? How and Why did Santana keep a Swiss Army Knife in her hair? Kurt was on the _football team?_—and Wes was afraid that if he thought about it for too long, he might _actually _go insane.

And in his defense, there were an awful lot of situational factors that managed to monopolize his time in the interim:

His teachers, who were largely fairly understanding about scheduling their exams around each other, had dropped the ball this month, leaving Wes and several other seniors with six exams in ten days.

Then his mother had called to remind him that the Asian Community Center was hosting its Ten Year Anniversary Gala next weekend, and did her favorite suit of his still fit, or did he need to get it tailored or go shopping? Wes couldn't admit that he'd forgotten about the Gala (or that truthfully, he wasn't that fond of the ACC—he dutifully took his grandmother to her twice-monthly Mah Jong night, and while the old ladies there loved him, he couldn't help but feel paranoid that they were planning his Asian marriage), so he had reassured her that he'd been to the tailor the day before. Which of course meant that he actually had to do it after school the next day.

And then, there was Blaine. Blaine, who had lost it entirely and had conscripted the Warblers for the least successful musical serenade in the history of romantic entertainment. Which not only had Wes allowed to happen against his better judgment, but had spent three days organizing logistics for. Because while Blaine was one of the most thoughtful people Wes had ever known, little things like 'details' and 'planning' had a tendency to escape him. If Wes hadn't arranged who was driving, and planned a seating arrangement that outstripped that of his parent's society wedding (the baritone section had a tendency to bitch like 14-year-old girls if left to their own devices), Blaine probably would have been legitimately surprised when the Warblers hadn't magically appeared at the mall that afternoon.

It had occurred to Wes quite a few times that that sort of magical thinking would serve Blaine well at McKinley, a thought he refused to indulge. Blaine, being Blaine, would probably do something ridiculous within the first ten minutes, like try to confront and psychoanalyze a bully, or pick a fight with a football thug three times his size.

Well, maybe not. Blaine was sweet and naïve, but he wasn't _stupid._

So no matter what David said about Wes being afraid of a bunch of public school kids (hypocritically, in Wes's opinion—David had yet to go back on his own), it was fair to say that Wes had quite enough on his mind even without the albatross that was Lima, Ohio.

Unfortunately, his nearly three weeks of relative sanity were brought to an end when, once again, Kurt inadvertently pulled Wes back in.

* * *

><p>Wes had only tangentially noticed that Blaine and Kurt had been rather on the outs with each other over the previous few days—not sitting together at rehearsal, no nauseatingly adorable staring or prolonged eye contact, no mile-a-minute conversations in the hall between classes. David, who was "paying more attention than you, Wes"—despite David's claims to the contrary, Wes still considered Facebook stalking to be stalking—said that the weird behavior had started the day after the pair had gone to a party together in Lima and had stayed out all night.<p>

His theories on the subject grew more elaborate by the day—Wes's personal favorite was that the party was merely a cover for a voodoo cult, and that Newly Initiated Blaine was having second thoughts, driving a wedge in his friendship with Cult VP Kurt. He agreed with David, though, that the most plausible theory was that a drunken makeout session in somebody's basement was having seriously awkward consequences (and causing plenty of private angsting).

Whatever the situation was, it had been a few days since Wes had seen Kurt _really _smile, as opposed to grimacing painfully in a manner Kurt probably would have called 'passably convincing' and the rest of the world would have called 'horribly obvious'.

Knowing all this, then, Wes was slightly more alarmed than he would have been otherwise when, after leaving rehearsal a few minutes late—and yes, perhaps Blaine was upset about something, but that was really no excuse for not picking up the absolute _ream _of paper he'd thrown around the room—he came across Kurt leaning against the wall outside the door.

Leaning against the wall outside the door, looking somehow both paler than normal and slightly blotchy, staring at his phone with an expression of sheer mortification.

Also? Trying to stifle his uncontrollable laughter.

And maybe Wes really wanted to stay far, far away from everything Lima, possibly with a ten foot pole. But he also had a responsibility to the Warblers, and Kurt was a Warbler.

Being responsible was such a drag sometimes.

Approaching extremely cautiously—he had taken AP Gov instead of Psychology, but it seemed the thing to do when engaging a potentially unstable person—Wes carefully set down his bag against the wall before addressing Kurt. "Warbler Kurt, is everything all right?" he asked gently, trying to keep an eye on Kurt while also looking for the nearest fire alarm, should he need it.

Kurt's slightly-crazed eyes snapped to Wes, making him flinch sharply. Kurt didn't appear to notice. "No! …well, yes. Sort of," he amended. "I don't—"

He sighed. "Sorry," he exhaled, visibly calming himself. "I just got some fantastic and slightly horrifying news from home, and I haven't quite figured out how to process the situation."

…all right. Wes must have looked as confused as he felt, because Kurt gave him a small, sympathetic smile. "Sorry, I know that was cryptic," he apologized again. "It's just—it concerns my old Glee club, so I'm not sure—"

"Kurt," Wes interrupted firmly, "if you don't wish to discuss anything related to New Directions, I would more than understand."

David was going to kill him. "However," he added, with that in mind, "if you do need to talk about it, or if you need any assistance, I hope you recognize that I would never use any information given in confidence to the advantage of the Warblers."

Well, that was mostly true, in any case. Entertaining the possibility of taking information into consideration while preparing for a competition was very slightly unethical (and difficult to say), but it wasn't like he was doing anything crazy, like slashing the competitions' tires or staging long term infiltrations of other Glee clubs.

Besides being completely unsportsmanlike, tactics bearing such strong resemblance to stunts pulled in '80s movies tended to be impractical and rarely worked out in real life.

Kurt looked a bit guilty, which in turn made Wes feel a bit guilty. "Well, I guess you'd find out soon enough anyway," Kurt rationalized, tapping on his phone.

"New Directions did a performance at McKinley for Alcohol Awareness Week. And it ended with my ex puking all over my biggest rival because, and there is not enough irony in the _world_ to do this statement justice, Rachel got everyone drunk right before they went onstage. And while normally I would watch this video every five minutes with undiminished joy for the rest of my life, the entire Glee club is getting hauled into the Principal's Office tomorrow, and we're pretty sure everyone is getting suspended, if not outright expelled."

Wes was sure that, had he been in possession of a mirror, his reflection would have been similar to Kurt's. He simply didn't know what to think, regarding the situation that Kurt had just outlined—unprofessional? Appalling? Hilarious with a top-note of sheer idiocy?

In the face of such mutual emotional confusion, there was only one thing to be done. "May I watch the video with you?" Wes asked politely.

Kurt nodded, and they watched the screen of his phone as scary, scary Brittany ripped open the curtain and began tearing into a Ke$ha number.

And...Wes didn't even bother swearing internally, opting instead for a small, pained sigh. This was beginning to become somewhat repetitive.

After a few pointed questions and an attempt at reassuring small talk, Wes picked up his bag and headed to David's room.

Crap.

* * *

><p>The day following their disastrous showing at the Gap had been David's birthday. Though the mission had been clearly unsuccessful, about half a dozen Warblers had remained keyed up on adrenaline and a whiff of rebellion for several hours after their uncharacteristic stunt. Consequently, David was now the proud owner of a 3'x5' rolling whiteboard and eight-pack of dry erase markers, recently liberated from Dalton's onsite storage facility.<p>

And mere minutes after Wes's unannounced arrival, the board was covered in David's multicolored handwriting. Wes watched solemnly as David added 'Matching Blue Paint-Thinner-esque Vomit' to a list which also contained such gems as 'Auto-tuning a Live Performance in a High School', 'Brittany is Kurt's Ex? What?', and 'Since When Does Tik Tok Send an Argument in Favor of Abstention From Alcohol?'

"This is bizarre," David agreed, "but no more bizarre than anything else we've seen out of McKinley so far." He turned to face Wes. "I know how much it takes to change your mind about something," he said frankly. "So I assume there's a bombshell you're about to deliver."

Wes didn't disappoint. "Before the vomiting put a rather abrupt end to the performance," he stated, "the school loved it. And I mean _loved_ it. The crowd response was fantastic."

David stared. "But the whole school hates them," he pointed out. "No, scratch that—the whole _town_ hates them. Kurt got a cat thrown at him once, remember? And he was so surprised that people actually like the Warblers _because _of how badly New Directions is treated."

"Don't forget all those videos and articles on that horrible blogger's website," Wes reminded him. "They're quite clearly at the bottom of McKinley's social hierarchy."

"Then why on earth would the whole school be so excited to see them perform?" David wondered out loud.

He paused. "You don't suppose they were drunk as well?" he offered hesitantly.

Wes shook his head. "That was my initial thought also," he said seriously. "So I asked Kurt about some of their other in-school performances. David—they caused a sex riot at their school last fall. And I don't have all the details, but their first two public performances somehow landed them standing ovations, last season's only winning football game, and half of their current members."

"I know," he added, when David looked at him in helpless frustration.

If David's girlfriend hadn't called right then, Wes was fairly certain that his friend would have ended up in tears of confusion at some point—he had a somewhat underwhelming tolerance for the unpredictable.

As it was, Wes spent a good portion of the evening ignoring the movie he and David were watching. Someone had to hold the pillow in place while David banged his head against his desk in frustration, after all.

* * *

><p>Saturday evening, Wes had left David in the capable hands of his girlfriend in favor of attending the ACC Gala. David had recovered enough from his despondency to wish Wes good luck on making it through the evening without getting Asian Betrothed. It was a harder job than it sounded—Wes spent just enough time at the Center for the old ladies to adore him, and little enough time that their teenage granddaughters barely knew him. (Wes's out-of-town, non-Asian girlfriend was, of course, not a factor in the equation.) Also, his tailor had done a <em>really <em>good job on Wes's suit.

Mathematically speaking, those were not good odds.

Two hours into the six hour event, Wes's face was beginning to hurt—he could Show Smile with the best of them, but performance conditions usually didn't involve having his cheeks sharply pinched in five minute intervals. Steering around a gaggle of giggling 13 year old girls, Wes made his fatigued way over to the buffet table, in the vain hope that the kimchi might perk him up. Or, alternatively, make his eyes bleed and mar his esophagus—a trip to the hospital was sounding better and better with each geriatric cheek he was socially pressured into kissing.

"Excuse me." A polite male voice from behind Wes jarred him from his melancholy. "Can I have the kimchi when you're done? If I get asked why I quit the violin in middle school one more time, I'm going to drown myself in it."

Wes smiled.

A kindred spirit. Excellent.

Turning around and passing him the bowl, Wes looked curiously at the newcomer. The boy was about his age, and had foregone a suit jacket in favor of a muted grey vest and matching fedora. Wes knew he hadn't seen him around at Mah Jong night (he would have remembered someone so, frankly, _cool_-looking), but something about him was definitely familiar…

The boy apparently had a better memory than Wes, because after a quick, searching look, he smiled. "You're Wes, right?" he asked. "Kurt's friend from Dalton?"

That was it—Wes had met him while helping Kurt move. In Lima. Where McKinley was.

He was going to be dead by 25, if his stress levels this year were indicative of his overall health.

Wes's first instinct was to be on his guard. Or possibly start running and not stop until he reached the state border. But he quickly checked himself—he was expected to stay at the Gala until at least nine, and it was barely past seven. Plus, the McKinley boy had been nothing but nice so far, and it wasn't as if he could do anything to Wes in front of every Asian family within 50 miles.

It occurred to Wes that he might be becoming paranoid.

Then he remembered Brittany, and decided that no, he really, really wasn't.

"I am, yes," Wes confirmed, smiling back charmingly and offering his hand. "You'll have to forgive me for not recalling your name—I remember that you danced incredibly well at Sectionals, but everything that happened in Lima after Santana pulled a boxcutter out of her hair is somewhat hazy."

The boy smiled reassuringly. "Yeah. I'd tell you she means well, but I'm pretty sure she doesn't. I'm Mike."

Wes nodded to the bowl of kimchi that Mike was still holding. "If you do decide to take the plunge, would you mind stumbling in my direction on the way down?" he asked lightly. "I'd really like to make it through the evening without being set up on half a dozen awkward dates, and I think getting splattered by the buffet can only assist in that endeavor."

Mike smiled amicably. "I'll try and steer clear of your face," he offered. Wes nodded absently, quickly casting his mind back as he tried to remember whether or not Kurt had ever mentioned anything about Mike in particular. _Dance, jock, dancing jock, Asian fusion…wait, what?_

Wes had to think about that one for a moment before he finally got it. "You have a girlfriend at McKinley, right? Is she here as well?"

Wes knew he had hit on an excellent topic of conversation when Mike's face lit up. "Tina's babysitting today, but she should be here around seven thirty," he explained, glancing at his watch.

Looking back up, he frowned slightly. "Incidentally," he added, "that's Mr. Chang, her dad, over there in the green tie. He hates me because I don't speak Korean and I'm sleeping with his daughter. Possibly in that order.

"So if you could move about eight inches to your left, that would be great."

Wes smoothly slid over as instructed, raising an eyebrow. "You're not Korean," he said, pointing out the obvious.

Mike looked solemn. "You would think that would make a difference, wouldn't you," he replied.

Wow, all right. Wes had met his share of intimidating fathers, but that was just absurd. If Mike was unnerved, though, he didn't show it. "So, Kurt says the Warblers are like, the superstars of Dalton," he segued smoothly.

Wes tried not to react visibly to the perfect opening Mike had just handed him. Admittedly, it was difficult to restrain himself—it was entirely possible that he was about to get to the bottom of the so-far indecipherable puzzle that was the McKinley social scene.

"We're quite well liked," he admitted, glancing down at his shoes (which were shined meticulously) in humility. "I've gotten the impression that that's not the case at McKinley."

Mike rolled his eyes. "'Not well liked' is kind of an understatement," he said ruefully. "We're the least popular club in the entire school, and that includes the local chapter of Future Pesticide Sprayers of America."

Wes winced. That was pretty bad.

Mike shrugged. "It's not as bad for me as it is for some of the others," he added, "since I'm on the football team. Sometimes that helps."

Wes raised an eyebrow. "Sometimes?" he inquired politely, willfully relaxing his fingers—they were itching to take notes.

He was such a dork, when did that happen?

Fortunately, Mike failed to notice Wes's twitching hands. "Yeah—the football team is crazy popular, which makes sense this year because we won the Championship. Last year we were terrible, but everyone still liked us. But Finn gets a lot of crap for being Kurt's stepbrother, and Puck is popular sometimes and not others, and Sam is one of the coolest guys in school, but he, Artie, and I took a hit when we got into a fight with Karofsky about him picking on Kurt."

Mike smiled kindly at Wes, who probably looked as lost as he felt. "We're nothing if not inconsistent," he allowed.

Wes frowned, replaying Mike's explanation in his head. "It sounds like a lot of it has to do with the team not liking Kurt," he reasoned, feeling his stomach twist unpleasantly—Kurt could be a bit much at times, and Wes could see how that wouldn't endear him to the more hoodlum-like element among the jocks, but—

"Wasn't Kurt on the team last year?" he remembered suddenly.

Mike's face darkened. "Yeah, he was," he confirmed with a trace of bitterness. "And he was the only reason we even won a single game—we were getting flattened before he talked Finn into getting him a tryout."

Mike shook his head, looking mildly disgusted. "It really sucks the way he gets singled out," he griped. "Even when he was a Cheerio, he's still got harassed, and Cheerios are _always_ popular—it's in their Handbook."

Hold the phone. Brainfreeze.

What. The.

"_Kurt was a Cheerio?"_ Wes asked incredulously.

Mike nodded.

"Like, 'Santana and Brittany are Cheerios', Cheerio?" Wes clarified, just in case he had misunderstood somehow.

Mike looked surprised. "You haven't heard?" he asked. "I thought Kurt might have mentioned it."

Wes was practically vibrating. "He and Blaine told us about you winning the Championship game, and about the halftime show, but that's all," he replied, trying to keep his voice steady and not overly interested. "Why, did something happen?"

Mike looked at his watch. "Let's find a table. Tina gets here in fifteen minutes—she's got a better memory than I do, so she'll be able to help me remember everything."

* * *

><p>"…then Mercedes dumped him, but it had no discernable affect on his regained popularity, possibly due to his hair growing back."<p>

"So Mercedes is popular."

"No, Mercedes _was_ popular, past tense. She quit the Cheerios shortly after that, and was unpopular again."

"But everyone who quit this year stayed popular."

"Mostly. Angle Santana's arrow down a bit; Tina said there were a few incidents in February that hurt her reputation a little. Something about mono and Justin Bieber."

It was two in the morning. Wes was slumped in David's rolling chair, still in his suit—he'd loosened his tie, he wasn't _that _uptight. David was standing in front of his whiteboard and was scribbling feverishly, having erased their previous list in order to make room for all the new information Wes had gleaned from Mike and his girlfriend, Tina.

Tina, who just happened to be the World's Best Gossip. And if that wasn't on a coffee mug in a gift shop somewhere, Wes was going to make her one himself.

All eight markers were uncapped and sitting on the desk next to David, giving the room a slight-but-unfortunate liquid-ink smell. When they'd begun charting, each person mentioned in Wes's narrative had been assigned their own color and given their own line on the board. Sometime around the Glist incident, however, David had given up, and the chart on the whiteboard now failed to resemble a chart, so much as an incestuous rainbow disaster.

The irony of such a metaphor for a Glee club did not go unnoticed.

"I can't even read this anymore," David complained, tossing the blue marker down on his desk and massaging the back of his neck with both hands.

Wes titled his head slightly, trying to make sense of David's scrawling. "Well," he began reasonably, "being a Cheerio makes you popular, unless you're Kurt, and dating a Cheerio makes you popular, unless you're Artie, who wasn't cool at all until joining the football team, but somehow had the social capital to talk the improbably preternatural jazz band into being their on-call musicians. If you're kicked off the Cheerios, you're automatically unpopular, but if you quit, it's hit or miss. If you're pregnant, you're not cool, but nobody cares about that anymore after you give birth.

"Also, never shave your Mohawk."

David looked as though he were about to puke or explode. Wes inched his chair back slightly, just in case. "If the voodoo theory is still on the table, I posit Santana as the leading Practitioner," he offered soothingly.

It didn't work: David exploded. "What is _wrong_ with this school?" he shouted, accidently smacking the whiteboard in the process with his thrashing. "Do the students at McKinley have the collective memory of a _goldfish?_ No," he snapped at Wes, who was now sitting up in his chair, waiting for a moment to interrupt, "do not tell me to calm down. I am not calming down. There is no _rhyme or reason_ to any of this, Wesley. It's like everyone periodically forgets who they're supposed to like or dislike on any given day, and are completely oblivious to the improbability of their actions!"

Several uncapped markers clattered to the floor. Wes thought it best to not say anything about that until David's arms had quit swinging wildly.

"And where are the students who don't care?" David demanded, ignoring the mess he was making of his room. "There are hundreds of students at McKinley, Wes. _Hundreds_. There is no possible way that there is only one all-inclusive social hierarchy that absolutely everyone sticks to without fail. This is not Mean Girls."

The blood drained from David's face. "Oh God. Wes. What if it's Mean Girls?"

Enough was enough. "David," Wes interrupted firmly. "It is not Mean Girls. McKinley is not the entertainment industry's representation of a high school in which a number of dramatic liberties have been taken, as much as it may seem to resemble that at times. _Movies and television are not real life, _and you need to calm down before you hyperventilate."

David, scrutinizing his chart again, was undeterred. "But how else can you explain the—"

He broke off, looking horrified.

"Wes," he croaked, not turning away from the whiteboard. "Wes, look at this pink line."

Wes looked at the pink line. It was completely straight, and was hovering mostly above the multicolored entanglement of the other seven colors—a line that indicated consistent, considerable popularity.

"All right," Wes said slowly, "so someone in New Directions is unfailingly esteemed by their peers. I'll admit that, given the visual representation we've constructed, that seems unusual, but I'm afraid I don't understand the significance."

David's expression was an interesting mixture of solemnity, panic, and impatience. "Wes, that's _Brittany's _line," he explained.

Wes remained unmoved. David sighed in exasperation.

"Wes. Brittany is Regina George."

Wes, faced with the prospect of David's complete loss of remaining rationality, was no longer unmoved.

"David," he protested, "Brittany is not Regina George. Brittany is not anyone but herself, all right? Just because she's blonde and untouchably popular and has fantastic legs and everyone wants to dress like her and she managed to escape a horribly embarrassing performance on a school stage unscathed and also ruined that Coach's credibility and is some sort of genius social manipulator—"

Wes paused. "I'm starting to prove your point now, aren't I?" he asked mildly.

David nodded.

Wes sighed. "I'm going to bed."

David's eyes bulged alarmingly. "You're going to _bed?_" he spat, looking at Wes like he'd never seen his best friend before. "We've just discovered that Brittany is the epicenter of a significant chunk of the insanity that is McKinley, and you are _going to bed?_ We have research to do; what is _wrong _with you?"

Wes stared back evenly, if vaguely dull-eyed. "I'm tired," he replied, "and I've had my mind blown enough for one day; I'm no longer processing information. I'm going to sleep, and I'm not getting up until your Plastic-based theory no longer seems plausible."

David looked pissed. "You are dead to me, Wesley," he declared, somewhat melodramatically, as Wes opened the door to the hall.

"Yes, but not because I got hit by a bus," Wes answered back flatly. "Everyone will still be insane in the morning. Good night, David."

And ignoring David's continuing glare, Wes gently closed the door behind him.

* * *

><p>When David failed to join him for breakfast the next morning—admittedly a couple hours later than usual for a Sunday—Wes assumed he was still upset about the previous evening. Sighing and stabbing at his waffles, he shifted in his seat, feeling slightly guilty. He hadn't meant to be so harsh with David, but it had been an incredibly long day, and he'd been in that suit for nearly ten hours, and he had to draw the line somewhere, and that somewhere was Lindsay Lohan.<p>

"…it's just not like him, I'm a little concerned." A familiar voice floated from somewhere behind him. A moment later, Blaine and Kurt sat down across from Wes, jolting him out of his thoughts.

Not for long, however. Blaine looked uncharacteristically serious as he ran a finger around the rim of his coffee mug. "Wes, have you talked to David yet today?" he asked, both he and Kurt staring at him with big, worried eyes.

Wes blinked. "No, I haven't," he said carefully, feeling a little paranoid when both boys looked slightly relieved. "Why?"

Blaine and Kurt looked at each other silently for several seconds. "Well," Blaine answered finally, still fiddling with his mug, "we passed by his room on the way here, and his DVD player was blasting."

"You could hear it all the way down the hall," Kurt affirmed. "We tried knocking, but he didn't answer. So we opened the door to check on him."

"And he was passed out on his bed with a handful of dry-erase markers and a bottle of Pepto Bismol," Blaine continued uneasily. "It was creepy."

Kurt nodded in agreement. "There were quotes from 'Mean Girls' all over his whiteboard," he offered. "And…"

He paused.

Wes looked back and forth between Kurt and Blaine. Both of them looked highly uncomfortable, and neither of them was making eye contact with him. "And…?" he prompted slowly, heart sinking.

Blaine broke first, as Wes knew he would. "You know that picture of the two of you that David has on his wall?" he asked awkwardly, "The one I took at the Warbler's Picnic last summer?"

Wes nodded warily, not liking where this was going, but powerless to stop it.

Blaine squirmed in his seat. "He…sort of wrote over it. With a permanent marker."

Wes sighed. There it was. "You may as well tell me," he told Blaine. He'd known David for years—it wasn't like he didn't already know what his best friend would have written under these particular circumstances.

Blaine confirmed it. "Um," he muttered sheepishly.

"He wrote, "Boo, you whore" in giant, capital letters."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Four in what will be a 5-6 chapter story.

These chapters just keep getting longer and longer. I've completely lost control of this story—it's wearing a collar, so if anyone sees it running along the side of the road, kindly give me a call.

As always, thank you to everyone who's been reading and reviewing; you're all awesomesauce. And special thanks to MaxximumRide666 and lil-miss-chocolate for helping me pick between two possible topics for this chapter. Probably for the best as well: I'm always told 'write what you know', and my first-hand knowledge doesn't really extend to crackhouses

I don't own anything, but I have a birthday coming up.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Four<strong>**: **rainbows, I'm inclined to pursue…

It took Wes and David an hour and forty-five minutes to clean the permanent marker from the wall.

Blaine brought over a fresh copy of the wrecked picture and ended up staying, sitting in David's chair with his feet propped up on the bed, picking out melodies on his guitar while the boys worked in silence.

Nobody spoke of the incident. David had scrubbed the whiteboard until it shown immaculately, and had wordlessly surrendered his Tina Fey DVD collection to Nick. Assuming David was having some sort of girl crisis, Nick had taken them, no questions asked, and locked them in a cabinet in his room for safekeeping.

Wes replaced David's near-depleted supply of antacids, and left a pair of (neatly folded) yoga pants on top of David's dresser, along with a copied schedule of Dalton's Mind-Body Athletic Programming. It was a testament to their friendship that David dutifully showed up to all three of the classes Wes had highlighted, and didn't complain when the be-ringed instructor repeatedly massaged the back of his neck with her knuckles, telling him in an overly-soothing tone of voice that he was carrying too much tension. Wes bought him a chocolate milkshake after that one.

Meanwhile, Wes waited. And waited. And on the eighth day, he was rewarded.

* * *

><p>It was nearly dinnertime on Monday evening when Henry Phillips, a sophomore Warbler in the tenor section, made eye contact with Wes from across the room. He nodded slowly, before picking up his things and slipping out of the rather crowded commons. Wes waited thirty seconds before excusing himself as well, commenting off-handedly that his brother's birthday was coming up, and he needed to do some online shopping before dinner.<p>

If anyone remembered the neatly-wrapped present that had been sitting in Wes's closet for almost a month, they had the courtesy not to mention it.

Henry was waiting for Wes just outside of his room. "Sorry it took us so long," he apologized as Wes unlocked the door and ushered him inside. "Apparently none of the school administrators actually keep files in their filing cabinets. Danny had to steal them from the guidance counselor, and her office has glass walls." Henry shook his head disbelievingly. "He's lucky all the teachers and faculty have lunch at the same time, or he never would have gotten away with it," he added.

Wes frowned. "Wouldn't having glass walls allow the entire school to look in on meetings with the counselor?" he wondered aloud. "That's a blatant violation of student confidentiality."

Henry shrugged, giving Wes a slightly strange look that Wes supposed he deserved—given the current circumstances, he couldn't really react with too much righteous indignation on behalf of the McKinley students. However…

"And how does that even work, everyone taking lunch at once?" he demanded, free of moral compromise on that point, at least. "Who's in charge of monitoring the cafeteria, if all the staff is on their break?" Wes paused, considering the possibilities. "And if all the students have lunch then as well, how on earth do they manage to even serve everyone within such a short span of time, let alone give everyone a chance to eat?"

Henry looked at him with huge, blank eyes.

Right. "Nevermind," Wes sighed. He'd save his skepticism of reality for David. "Go ahead, please."

Wes studied Henry as the boy unzipped his backpack and began emptying it onto Wes's desk. He was slightly built, well groomed, and polite—just like all of the other sophomore Warblers. Though a nice young man and a promising talent, there was really nothing that distinguished him from the rest of his peers, except for one thing:

Henry had a first cousin who was a senior at McKinley.

A first cousin who was not above both breaking and entering, and pilfering the student files of one Brittany Pierce.

Henry placed an inch-thick stack of documents on top of Wes's math textbook. "These are photocopies of everything out of her student file for this year," he explained, digging through his bag again as he spoke. "These," he continued, pulling out another stack at least three times as big as the first and handing it to Wes, "are everything related to school clubs and sports, as well as disciplinary action reports, from last year and the year before."

Wes eyed the giant pile of papers. "That's…quite a bit more than I asked for," he said gently, noting with approval that the handwriting on each page was impeccable, and that the person responsible for stapling the originals must have used a ruler to ensure such even placement.

Henry fidgeted under the scrutiny, going slightly red. "Yeah. Um, I guess for some reason, Brittany's last name wasn't on file at McKinley until sometime this year."

Wes stared. "How is that even possible?" he asked, stunned. This was the 21st century—between vaccination records, test scores, parental communication, state records, registration, etc, Brittany's surname should have been quite literally the first thing on all of her official school documents.

Unless she was a computer genius who managed to alter her own files, for insidious reasons of her own. Which was potentially the only thing scarier than such a massive oversight on the part of Ohio's Department of Education.

Henry was looking at Wes with some concern. "I just asked Danny to grab those, since you said she was in Glee club and a cheerleader and maybe evil; I figured she'd have to be in there somewhere. That's okay, right?" he asked nervously.

Wes forced himself to nod. "That's fine, Henry. I appreciate all of your help," he said reassuringly. "And this type of information will certainly aid in…what we spoke about."

Henry lit up, and Wes smiled indulgently. It may have taken a monetary bribe to convince Henry's cousin to steal, copy, and replace confidential paperwork—and a promise of a much larger payment to ensure his silence, were he to be apprehended in the process—but convincing Henry to go along with the plot had been significantly easier. One suggestion that Brittany might possibly be trying to manipulate Blaine and Kurt into some sort of trouble, and he was practically tripping over his own feet in his eagerness to help save them.

The sophomore Warblers might be in two camps when it came to Kurt (most of them loved him; a few barely concealed their envy of his instant status among the upperclassmen), but when it came to Blaine, there was only one—starry-eyed hero-worshippers with embarrassingly obvious talent-crushes.

The sophomore class was just slightly overprotective of their lead singer.

Wes needed to call David; it wouldn't be right to look at the files without him. Henry would have to leave first, however—it wouldn't do to let the rest of the Warblers find out that 2/3 of their current leadership was quite probably mentally unbalanced. He smiled pleasantly. "We should go to dinner," he suggested politely, straightening his tie with a practiced casualness. "Thank you again for all of your hard work, Warbler Henry. You'll of course be kept informed of the situation as it progresses; I assume I can count on your discretion."

Henry straightened. "Of course," he echoed, clutching at his backpack. Still, he looked somewhat ill at ease.

Wes kept his tone gentle. "Is everything all right, Warbler Henry?" he inquired kindly, trying not to look overly imposing—according to Thad, there was a fairly substantial minority of underclassmen who were afraid of him and his gavel.

Wes couldn't imagine why.

Henry's eyes dropped to the floor. "Danny found something else, another file, while he was searching," he admitted, face coloring. "I had him copy it as well, but…I'm afraid it was Unsportsmanlike and Behavior Unbecoming of a Warbler." He frowned, still not meeting Wes's eyes.

Ah. That was it. Technically, this one was David's fault—he was the one who told scary stories featuring the Disgraceful Expulsion of Former Warblers to scare the younger students on Halloween. Which, incidentally, was directly responsible for the complete depletion of flashlights and Sominex at the local drugstore on November 1st.

"The current Warbler Code of Conduct was set in motion during the McCarthy Era, in an effort to keep our top singers from being targeted by anti-Communist investigations," Wes explained calmly. "I'm sure whatever it was you and Danny found isn't blanketed under the letter of the Code. And if I think that it is, I'll shred it this very evening. All right?"

Henry, looking visibly relieved, nodded gratefully. Pulling one last stack of papers out of his bag, he handed them to Wes with a slightly shaking hand.

* * *

><p>Wes waited until Henry was safely down the hall before perusing the stolen file. Five seconds later, the papers were scattered unceremoniously on the floor, and Wes was waiting breathlessly for David to pick up the phone.<p>

McKinley had done it again.

* * *

><p>"You can't just leave it there."<p>

"Watch me."

"Wesley, it's in your room. What are you going to do, never go in there again?"

"David, I don't think you are grasping the seriousness of the situation. There is a shirtless picture of Mr. Schuester, _taken on school property_, on the floor of my room. I am in possession of pornographic photographs _spotlighting potential sexual misconduct_ at McKinley. _Of course I am not going back in there._"

Wes folded his arms and slumped against his closed door, scowling at David. David, who hadn't seen the photo that had so traumatized Wes, and therefore had clearly not understood the implications and importance of such a snapshot being present in what was technically a school document.

Plus, creepy. Oh, God.

David sighed. "One of us is going to have to go in there, Wes," he reasoned. "Even if you childishly avoided your room for the rest of the year,"—Wes sniffed at the description—"someone will go in there eventually to clean out the room, and they'll think the photo was yours."

Wes shifted against the door. That was…a surprisingly good point.

He sighed. "I don't suppose there's any way we could get Blaine to go in there and clear out any potential gay porn, is there," he inquired hopelessly.

David shook his head. "I'm afraid not," he said solemnly. "We're just going to have to go in there and take it like men."

A horribly awkward moment passed in silence, as both David and Wes processed the unintentional implication of David's incredibly poorly-worded statement, given the current situation.

David looked slightly ill. "And when I say that, what I mean to imply is, 'Let's go sort through those papers and see what horrible things are going on at McKinley, in an entirely appropriate, platonic, and heterosexual-but-gay-friendly type of way.'"

Wes nodded gravely. "Exactly what I was thinking," he agreed quickly. "Let's go."

* * *

><p>It was a fortunate thing for both Wes's sanity and David's nerves that the rest of the file Wes had dropped turned out to be (largely picture-free) printed articles. Some were from the school newspaper, some were from The Lima Chronicle, and still others were from various student blogs.<p>

All were related somehow to Will Schuester.

In an effort to get through the stolen paperwork sometime before the end of the school year, Wes had taken the Clubs and Discipline files, while David read through the Schuester articles. They planned on saving Brittany for last and going through it together, just in case it contained any major bombshells.

And in the two hours since, Wes had learned way more than he wanted to about the horrifying state of affairs at McKinley. Such as that Tina had been threatened with suspension because the Principal was legitimately afraid of vampires, but Jacob Ben Israel had somehow blackmailed a girl out of her panties and had been _caught naked_ in the school library, and had escaped punishment; that the former Glee Club director, Sandy Ryerson, had been fired for sexual harassment and misconduct, but had been hired back by the Principal and was allowed to work with children (and had performed publicly with Mr. Schuester, according to several newspaper articles David had found) and seemed to have free reign of the school's campus; that Coach Sylvester—a cheerleading coach who didn't actually teach classes—somehow had the authority to dictate school policies (including banning specific items from the cafeteria for no allergy-related reasons) and hire and fire staff members without impunity; and that although there were hundreds of reports mentioning slushies, portable toilets, dumpstered students, locker shoves, verbal harassment, hair cutting, and illegal usage of firearms on campus (that last one had to be a joke; there was _no way _Coach Sylvester had managed to get a cannon on campus without attracting some sort of legal investigation) none of the students—or faculty—responsible ever received more than a figurative slap on the wrist.

It was as if the school board had purposely gathered together the most incompetent, oblivious, irresponsible group of adults capable of getting their teaching licenses, threw in a couple of malicious teachers who should technically have been serving felony sentences in federal prison, and let them loose upon the students.

No wonder McKinley was so screwed up.

"Here's another one," David announced, tilting the article he was reading so that it was visible to Wes. "You said that Kurt mentioned a sex riot? Apparently, it was Mr. Schuester's fault—according to this, Mr. Schuester was initially against the performance, but ended up joining the club on stage in order to impress Ms. Pillsbury, the guidance counselor."

Wes frowned, thinking. "Wasn't she with the football coach, though? I thought the articles about that a cappella group said she was his girlfriend."

David nodded absently, flipping through his discard pile. "Yeah, they were engaged at some point last year, but I don't think they ever actually got married. The tone of a number of these blog entries suggested that she was with Mr. Schuester as well at some point."

Wes squinted at the report he was holding. "The football coach, his last name wasn't Howell, was it?" he asked David. "Because half of these reports are signed 'Pillsbury', and the other half are signed 'Pillsbury-Howell'."

David began skimming again. "No," he answered finally, "it was Tanaka. Ken Tanaka. I don't really have a lot about him here—from what I can gather, he and Mr. Schuester were close friends, he was engaged to the guidance counselor, he coached some of the worst sports teams in the region, and then he just sort of disappeared and nobody ever mentioned him again."

Wes frowned. "Well that can't be right," he reasoned. "We must be missing some important information somewhere."

David nodded in agreement. "We must be. Can I use your computer to look something up?"

Wes gestured to his laptop. "What are you checking?" he asked, placing the last of his papers into the neat pile that had been forming to his left and rubbing gently at his temples. Ms. Pillsbury(-Howell)'s handwriting was neat and legible, but tiny, and 200 pages of it was beginning to give Wes a slight headache.

David pulled up Wes's search engine and began typing rapidly. "I kept finding references to something called 'Chronic Lady'," he explained, "something about various students and staff members being caught with it. Coach Tanaka was one of them; our conversation just reminded me."

Wes perked up. "I saw that as well," he mentioned. "It came up repeatedly with reference to Sandy Ryerson, but no students were ever actually punished for it, so I thought—"

"Holy crap, Wes," David interrupted. "Get over here."

Wes hurried over to where David was perched on his bed, clutching Wes's laptop. "What is it?" he asked, not without some concern.

David shook his head disbelievingly. "Chronic Lady," he explained cryptically, handing Wes the computer. Wes looked at the screen.

And nearly dropped the computer on his foot. "_Medical Marijuana?_" he hissed incredulously. "They have _medical marijuana_ at McKinley?"

David looked equally disconcerted. "It's appalling, I know," he agreed fervently. "Even if you ignore the implication that the _teachers_ are doing drugs, just the fact that the patients who are supposed to have easy access to—"

"_They have medical marijuana at McKinley?_" Wes repeated, completely ignoring David for the time being. "David, medical marijuana isn't available in Ohio. It isn't available within _hundreds of miles _of Ohio. Someone had to go to _Michigan _or _Virginia _in order to buy it and resell it at McKinley. _Who has that kind of time and dedication to spend dealing small time drugs to a town that's barely above the poverty line?"_

David shifted uncomfortably. "Well, technically," he began carefully, "the economic distribution in Lima is really quite diverse—were you aware that they have mansions and socialites, and that occasionally doctors live in 'the projects'?"

Wes glared deeply at David. "This is no time for air quotes," he reprimanded harshly, and David immediately dropped his hands. "David, we've just discovered a _drug ring_ at McKinley. What's next? What does the next article say—are there crackhouses that all of the students just happen to know the exact locations of? Do the Lima dentists use hallucinogens instead of proper anesthetics? David—"

David grabbed Wes's wrists. "Wes, you need to calm down," he ordered, looking alarmed. "You're beginning to hyperventilate. Do you need a paper bag to breathe into? I can go find one."

Wes shook his head, taking deep, shuddering breaths. "No," he answered finally, "I'm fine. Let's just…let's just move on to the Brittany file, all right? I can't read through any more of this."

"I'll be fine, David," he insisted, when David didn't immediately respond.

David looked wary, but he picked up the remaining stack of papers from Wes's desk. "As long as you're sure," he agreed hesitantly, handing Wes the first few sheets before settling in to read what was left.

"That's…horrifying and bizarre," he commented a moment later. "Don't they conduct background checks to ensure that child molesters don't end up working in schools? Oh, hang on…nevermind," he concluded, "the charges were dropped. Coach Sylvester was just making another atrocious accusation that could have resulted in a lawsuit, were the good people of McKinley so inclined."

David stopped to consider that. "Is it weird, that saying that no longer has the same impact?"

Wes didn't answer. He couldn't answer. He felt ill. "Wes?" he heard David ask quietly, feeling his friend nudging at his shoulder.

Oh, right. Speech.

"You gave me Brittany's transcript," he explained, his voice sounding unusually wavery to his own ears. David looked at him expectantly. Biting the inside of his cheek, he passed the papers back over to David.

_3…2…1…_

"She's failing _everything?_" David cried out in alarm. "How can she be failing everything? And," he flipped the papers violently, skimming each page quickly, "she failed everything last year? _And the year before?_ That's not possible, Wes—she's still advancing into the next grade every year. She can't possibly be getting straight F's."

Wes tapped the papers in David's hands. "Not according to these," he pointed out. "According to Brittany's file, she's failing everything, is not in any sort of special ed or tutoring program to help rehabilitate said failing grades, and hasn't passed a single final exam in her entire high school career."

He shook his head weakly. "And since we know that none of those statements can _possibly_ be true, there must be an alternate explanation as to why her school file has her made out to be, quite possibly, the dumbest high schooler alive."

Wes swallowed. "Have I told you the part of my hypothesis re:McKinley wherein Brittany is a computer genius?" he asked tentatively.

David began shaking slightly as the implication of Wes's theory dawned on him. "But what reason would she have to forge her own paperwork? And why would she fill it with such obviously erroneous information?"

Wes looked down at Brittany's fake transcript. "The only reason I can think of for her to make a false trail," he began slowly, "is if she thought, perhaps, that someone might try to gain access to her personal information."

"Like we just did," David pointed out.

"Like we just did," Wes agreed. "And as far as—"

"_Wes_," David interrupted sharply, "we just took her file from McKinley."

Wes looked at him strangely. "Yes, we said that already," he pointed out, a little unnerved by David's sudden uncharacteristic outburst.

David grabbed Wes's arm. "No, you're not following," he complained, a bit desperately. "If Brittany replaced her own file thinking that someone might try and steal it, and we somehow obtained said file, what are the odds that she's unaware of it?"

Dalton's Code of Rules and Campus Policies stated clearly that no fires were to be started on school grounds.

Consequently, paperwork had never before been burned so hastily within the Academy's hallowed halls.

* * *

><p>It took an additional three days before Wes and David stopped sweeping their rooms for listening devices in random intervals, adopting a 'Wait and See' attitude toward the blonde McKinley dancer and any potential action she might take against them.<p>

In the meantime, they had smaller annoyances to deal with. Namely, Blaine.

Wes realized that, given the questionable activities he and David had been filling their free time with as of late (David had stayed up well past midnight two evenings prior, internet stalking Dr. Carl Howell) he had very little room to criticize anyone else's behavior. But Blaine had organized a Warbler event that included a foam machine, an abandoned warehouse, and a group of giggly teenage girls. Specifically, inviting a group of giggly teenage girls to an abandoned warehouse and spraying them with said foam machine, under the premise of rating their collective sexiness. Wes was choosing to ignore the fact that Blaine—_Blaine, _who couldn't organize his way out of a paper bag on a good day—had put the rehearsal together, in favor of marveling that they had made it to the end of the day without any charges being pressed.

Marveling with a side of sheer relief—besides the shame it would bring to the school and their families, most of the Warblers (himself included) were far too pretty to go to prison.

So yes, although Wes could admit that his slate wasn't exactly spotless, Blaine was definitely on a shorter leash than usual for the foreseeable future. Which is why Wes was somewhat concerned when he saw Blaine sneaking out to the parking lot after the last class of the day. Glancing around to confirm that nobody was watching him (an elementary precaution that Blaine had obviously failed to employ) Wes slipped out the door after him.

Either Wes was quieter than he thought, or Blaine was particularly oblivious, because Blaine didn't notice Wes's presence until Wes tapped him on the shoulder when they reached the car. Politely ignoring his girlish shriek of alarm, Wes picked up the keys Blaine had dropped and handed them back with a smile.

"Where are you off to this afternoon, Warbler Blaine?" he asked, infusing his voice with all the charm and sincerity he could muster.

Blaine shrugged, not making eye contact. "Just…getting some coffee," he lied.

Wes nodded slowly. This was going nowhere good. "Excellent," he replied, playing along. "May I join you? I have a paper to write for history, and I could use some caffeine."

Blaine stuttered slightly, clearly caught off guard by Wes's proposal. "Well, I…you don't have anywhere to be? I know how busy you normally are after class."

Wes smile grew even wider. "How kind of you to notice, Blaine," he said sweetly. "No, I'm taking the afternoon off. You and Archduke Ferdinand have all of my attention today."

Blaine looked slightly uncomfortable. Wes decided to take pity on him. "Or you could tell me where you're really going," he suggested kindly.

"You're a wonderful vocalist, but your feigned innocence could use some work," he added, when Blaine gave him a startled look. Crossing his arms and leaning against the car, Wes settled in to wait for Blaine to spill his guts.

It didn't take long. "I'm going to Lima," Blaine admitted with a sigh, glancing back at the building. "I need to talk to Kurt's dad, but I don't want Kurt to know I'm going. Hence the sneaking."

Wes eyed Blaine evenly. "You're not…asking his permission to…_woo _Kurt, are you?" he asked dubiously. Because honestly, that sounded exactly like something Blaine would do. And while Wes would absolutely give the pair his blessing if they wanted to formalize their relationship, Blaine's current spate of poor decision making would surely affect any discussion he were to have with Mr. Hummel.

Wes had a sudden, horrible vision of Blaine scrambling up on top of an SUV to get away from a rampaging, tire-iron wielding Burt Hummel.

It would have been hilarious if it weren't such a likely possibility.

Blaine was frowning at him. "No, it's not like that," he explained, only laying roughly half of Wes's fears to rest. "I just need to talk to him, and I'd rather not discuss it."

Wes nodded. "All right, then. Are you driving, or shall I?" Before Blaine could protest, Wes held up a silencing hand. "I'll wait in the car, if necessary," he offered, before narrowing his eyes sternly. "But if memory serves, the last few times you went to Lima, you came back either hungover, fighting with Kurt, or with a newfound appreciation for foam cannons and heterosexual warehouse debauchery. Forgive me if I'd prefer this trip were supervised."

Blaine, at least, had the decency to look properly abashed as he handed over the keys to Wes.

* * *

><p>Blaine's internet directions led them not to Kurt's new house, but to Hummel Tires and Lube. As he parked the car on the gravel lot, Wes spotted a familiar hulking figure near the door—Kurt's stepbrother Finn was clumsily rolling a pair of tires out to a giant stack several yards away. Blaine waved out the window, and Finn waved back, upsetting his already-precarious coordination and allowing one of the tires to flop on its side.<p>

Wes tried not to wince as a dust cloud ballooned up from the ground.

"Hi Finn," Blaine called out, sounding slightly on edge as he and Wes climbed out of the car.

Finn smiled back. "Hey, Blaine. Kurt's not here, he's at school."

He paused, looking back and forth between Wes and Blaine. "Wait," he said slowly, looking confused.

Wes took pity on him. "He's still at school—French club is meeting this afternoon," he explained. "Blaine just wanted to talk to Mr. Hummel. Is he around?"

Finn brightened. "Yeah, he's inside. I'm helping," he added proudly, letting the second tire spin to the ground.

Wes worked hard to turn his grimace into a smile. "Would you like some assistance?" He asked politely, before turning to Blaine. "I assume you wanted some privacy for this conversation?" Blaine nodded, before swallowing nervously and excusing himself.

Leaving Wes with Finn, who was looking at him curiously. "You talk a lot like Kurt," he observed mildly. "He uses a lot of big words, too."

Wes smiled innocuously, picking up one of the tires with his fingertips and rolling it toward the tire stack. "We like Kurt," he acknowledged. "I know he misses his old school, but we enjoy having him around. Blaine in particular," he added as an afterthought.

Finn's brow furrowed slightly. "Yeah, uh, is Blaine like, okay?" he asked, lifting his own tire into place before relieving Wes of his. "He usually talks more."

Wes smiled wryly. "He's been a little off this week," he confided, brushing his fingers off inconspicuously. "He met the cheerleading coach from your school the other day, and I think she may have terrified him a little."

Finn shuddered. "Yeah, I don't blame him," he agreed. "Coach Sylvester is like, the scariest person alive. And I lived with a pregnant girl who was always mad at me, so I know scary people."

As wary as the Brittany incident had initially made him, Wes knew an opportunity when he saw one. "Are all the teachers at McKinley like her?" he asked innocently.

Finn shook his head, starting back toward the shop door, where a small pile of tires were waiting. "Nah, most of them are ok," he said reassuringly. "Mr Schue is really cool."

Wes nodded, following along more quickly than he would have liked in order to keep up with the significantly taller Finn. "How so?"

Finn paused at the garage door, looking thoughtful. "Well, it's like—I mean, I have Burt now, and he's awesome, but my Dad died when I was just a baby, you know?" he explained, passing Wes another tire and looking at him with a startling degree of sincerity, considering that they barely knew each other. "Mr. Schue was kind of the closest thing I had to a father figure for a long time," he continued. "He did things for me that a Dad would have done, like try and teach me to dance, and take me and Quinn to the clinic to see the baby doctor."

Wes choked a little. "Your teacher…took you to a sexual health clinic?" he asked faintly, thinking that perhaps he had misheard.

Finn frowned, clearly picking up on Wes's unease. "Hey man, it wasn't like that," he insisted. "He was just looking out for us, especially since she couldn't tell her parents."

Wes put the hand not steadying his tire up in apology. "Of course," he agreed. But… "They must have found out eventually."

Finn's scowl grew, although this time it wasn't directed at Wes. "Yeah, they kicked her out," he said bitterly, slumping against the wall behind him. "She ended up living with us for a while, then with Puck when we found out it was his baby, and then with Mercedes when she got tired of putting up with him."

Wes decided it was safest to skip over the sexual politics in that particular explanation. "I'm surprised that was allowed," he commented offhandedly, thinking—not for the first time—how glad he was to go to an all-boys Academy.

Finn looked confused again. "What was allowed?" he asked, tilting his head slightly.

Wes paused, trying to remember specific details from his Sociology in Government elective from the previous year. "Well," he began slowly, "usually Child Protective Services tries to place a minor with other family members, if they can't live with their own parents for some reason."

Finn continued to look baffled. "Child Protective Services?" he asked cluelessly.

It was only then that Wes remembered Kurt comparing Finn unfavorably to a goldfish, once.

"Yes, when Mr. Schuester called to report the Fabrays, he would have called them," Wes backtracked. "Or whomever was affiliated with them locally, I can't recall specifics," he amended.

Finn shook his head. "Mr. Schue didn't call anybody," he insisted.

Wes abandoned his tire altogether. "Finn, throwing a sixteen year old out of her home, pregnant or not, is child neglect, at the very least," he explained carefully. "Teachers are mandated reporters. If Mr. Schuester knew that one of his students was living with whomever would have her because her parents abdicated responsibility, then legally, he would have had to call and report it."

Finn smiled, and Wes sighed gratefully. There was no possible way Finn couldn't see the discrepancy now.

He was, of course, immediately proven wrong. "Mr Schue isn't like that, though, he wouldn't get anyone in trouble," Finn said flippantly. "I didn't turn in, like, _any _of my homework the week that I had mono, and he didn't say anything about that. And he didn't report me when he found that pot in my locker at the beginning of last year—if he did, I'd have gotten into so much trouble."

Wes, who had been prepared to explain—in the same patient tone that was slowly becoming less patient and more exasperated—that mono wasn't something that disappeared within a week, but rather stayed around for months, was caught off guard by Finn's most recent revelation. "Wait, what?" he asked, the epitome of grace and eloquence.

Finn backed up defensively. "It wasn't mine!" he protested loudly, "I don't even know how it got in there! But Mr. Schue found it, and he was really cool about it—he said if I joined Glee club, he wouldn't tell anyone." He brightened suddenly. "And he let us throw slushies at him, that one time," he added.

Wes decided, for the sake of his mental state, to temporarily ignore the obvious intuitive leap that involved a teacher planting drugs—probably Chronic Lady, he realized suddenly—on a student to blackmail them into a school performance group. "Slushies?" he asked warily.

Finn was visibly eager to change topics. "Yeah," he enthused, "because Quinn was upset that she was getting slushies thrown at her—she was used to being popular, so she had a hard time when everyone found out she was pregnant and started targeting her too. Mr. Schue was trying to make us feel better, so he let us all hit him with the slushies I bought. It was awesome."

Wes liked to think of himself as a fairly peaceful person. At that moment, however, he would have gladly bashed his head into a wall, just to make the insanity stop.

"Wait—just…stop for a moment," he requested, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You're saying that your teachers know that their students get frozen drinks thrown at them, and they don't do anything about it," he restated, trying to reconcile Finn's assertation with, well, _reality._ "And they let people throw slushies at a pregnant girl?" he continued.

Finn's defensive posturing had returned. "It's not like they could do anything about it," he argued.

Wes rolled his eyes. "They could _unplug the slushie machine_," he pointed out unkindly.

"We don't have a slushie machine," Finn declared triumphantly, clearly certain that he had won the argument.

Wes was stunned. "You're telling me that students specifically go off campus to buy slushies to throw at students, and nobody says anything," he said, stating the obvious and praying that the point hit home with Finn before his brain imploded, and Blaine came out to find his cerebrospinal fluid staining his blazer. "Not the teachers, or the administration, or the janitorial staff."

Finn shrugged, patently unaware that Wes was within seconds of a serious meltdown. "I don't know," he offered, "it just kinda happens. When you're popular, you throw slushies, and when you're not, you get hit with them."

Wes wanted David. David would make sure to put him in a clean blazer before they buried him.

Unfortunately, David wasn't there, and he was alone with Finn until Blaine was done doing whatever ridiculous thing he was doing in Mr. Hummel's garage. "There is absolutely no discipline at that entire school, is there?" he asked sadly, resigning himself to a life of blood pressure medication and stress balls and cerebral explosions.

Confused Finn was back, since apparently Kurt's stepbrother only had the use of four facial expressions. "Uh, no?" he answered. "I mean sometimes we have celibacy club, but we're not really supposed to talk about religion in school—Kurt got really pissy about that once."

Wes couldn't even work up the effort to be surprised over the verbal misconception. "No, not disciple, discipline," he clarified. "It means…detention, expulsion, punishment for doing things like _throwing frozen corn syrup_ at people."

Finn lit up "No," he disagreed, "we totally have that. Karofsky got expelled by Coach Sylvester when he threatened to kill Kurt. The school board overturned it though—that's why Kurt got sent to Dalton."

He bit his lip, looking suddenly unsure. "Uh, didn't he tell you guys that?"

* * *

><p>"He just said it like it was no big deal," Wes was complaining hoarsely several hours later. "And yes, perhaps within the context of that positively infuriating conversation, it lost some of its impact. But still—death threats, David."<p>

David had only needed one look at Wes's ashen complexion upon his return from Lima, before springing into action. Wes was now wearing his bathrobe and had been reiterating his appalling afternoon while lying down, having been comfortably tucked into David's bed with a mug of chamomile tea, a hot water bottle at his slippered feet, and a cool compress for his forehead.

And if Wes felt a bit like his Great-aunt Nadine, that was entirely beside the point.

"And the school board just let him come back?" David asked incredulously, gripping his own mug of tea and looking, frankly, bewildered. "None of the teachers said anything at all?"

Wes frowned. "I guess not. It would appear that the only teacher to actually take any sort of stand on the pathological bullying at McKinley is Coach Sylvester, who by all reports is a terrifying bully in her own right."

David looked as sick as Wes felt. "I'm so glad Kurt doesn't have to go back there," he confessed, taking another sip of his tea. "I knew it must be bad, but I had no idea it was _that_ bad."

He paused. "Wes," David said suddenly, "he thought we were going to beat him up, the first time we met him. He was actually being serious."

He frowned. "Blaine knew, didn't he?" he asked.

Wes scoffed. "He did," he confirmed darkly. "And during the car ride home, he was on the receiving end of a very long lecture about how Friends Don't Let Friends Potentially Suffering From PTSD Transfer Schools Without Warning Said New School That Student A's More Caustic Personality Traits Are Actually Defense Mechanisms Finely Honed Over Years of Victimization at Aforementioned Previous School."

David was silent for a moment. "That must have been impressive," he said finally. "I know that you like to plan your diatribes in advance, but just based on the name, I think I would have found it highly effective."

Wes's expression softened. "Blaine was suitably abashed," he agreed, "although I think that whatever he and Mr. Hummel discussed in the garage may have helped—he was somewhat cowed to start with."

"Oh. Speaking of Blaine," David added, snapping his fingers in a burst of memory, "I spoke to Kurt earlier, to ask him whether he thought his old Coach was telling the truth about the judges at Regionals looking for more sex appeal."

Wes perked up. "And?"

David waved a hand. "Not a chance, he said. There was something in there about personal grudges and ozone-destroying amounts of hair product, but I may have tuned out for a minute because I thought he was talking about Blaine again.

"But anyway," David continued impatiently, "that wasn't what I was going to tell you. While we were talking, Kurt got a phone call from his gossipy friend."

"Tina?" Wes asked hopefully, sitting up a little and removing the compress. He liked Tina—she wasn't insane.

"No," David dismissed, "the other gossipy friend. Mercedes."

Wes lay back down, slightly disappointed.

"I couldn't understand most of their conversation, because have you listened to the two of them, honestly, but the bottom line: that Guidance Counselor who had a crush on Mr. Schuester, but then was engaged to that Football Coach, but they broke up and she and Mr. Schuester got together, but then she broke it off with him to marry her dentist, all in the space of eighteen months? Yeah, she and her dentist are calling it quits—Mercedes says he's moving out because she's probably in love with Mr. Schuester again."

Wes slowly put his teacup down.

And then exploded.

"What are they putting in the water at McKinley?" he asked, voice deadly serious. "Please tell me. Because I feel like most people are genuinely capable of monogamy, or causally dating, or singlehood, or something other than dating people _when they're obviously in love with someone else or deciding that they are in love with the person they're with within the first week of a relationship._ Is it pheromones? Should we be purchasing chemical filters en masse? Help me out here please, David. Because if it was just the students, I could—dubiously, mind you, but still—chalk it up to teenage stupidity. But if even the adults, particularly the ones whose _sole responsibility at that school_ is to guide the students through their problems—"

Wes took a calming breath. Strangely, it did not calm him. "If even the adults are in on this madness," he repeated through gritted teeth, "then I have no hope left, David."

David…had nothing to say to that. They finished their tea in silence.

* * *

><p>It was after dark when David finally voiced what he was thinking. "Wes," he began gently, "I think it's time."<p>

Wes stirred. "Time for what?" he asked sleepily. His position of comfort, plus David's tea and the energy it had taken to sustain his earlier emotional outburst, had been highly effective in reducing his anxiety. So much so, that he could have easily slept there for the eleven hours left until breakfast.

David smiled apologetically. "Time to stop haphazardly gathering intel from afar. After what you discovered today, I don't think we can put it off any longer."

Wes sat straight up, no longer drowsy. A sinking feeling of dread filled his stomach. "You're not suggesting…" he started before trailing off.

David's mouth twisted. "I am," he affirmed.

"We're going to have to pay McKinley a visit."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 5.1 in what will be a 5-6 chapter story.

**Warning**: This chapter ends in a cliffhanger of sorts—my computer crashed, and it's beginning to turn into a ridiculous amount of time to make you all wait for an update, so I've split it into two parts. But! I can promise that everything will be okay, and that I'll be as quick as I possibly can in getting up part II of this chapter; within the week, if I can.

On a completely unrelated note, I already posed this question to my fine tumblr folks, but theoretically, if I were writing a Klaine AU piece in which Kurt attended Carmel rather than McKinley (and had sort of fallen into the role of Jesse St James's protégé), only to meet a fresh-off-his-Sadie Hawkins-experience Blaine…how would you feel about that? It'd be my first AU fic, so I'm a little uneasy about it, but it's so nice in my head so far :)

As always, thank you for reading—you rock.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Five, Part I: Age Ain't Nothin' But a Number<strong>

One of the downsides of having attended uniform-mandatory private schools since the third grade, Wes reflected, was that one never really learned how to dress like a teenager. It wasn't that he couldn't dress _well_—color coordination had never been an issue for him, and he could select fabrics and fasten cufflinks with the best of them—but dressing _well _and dressing _to blend in while_ _infiltrating a public high school _were not necessarily overlapping interests.

David, who had never even tried on a sweater that wasn't fitted, designer, and/or gifted to him by his stylish mother, was even less prepared than Wes to dress the part of a McKinley student.

The day of their attempted subterfuge was going to have to be the following Tuesday, the only Teacher Conference Day left in the academic year. So it was with some desperation that Wes spent three hours of his Saturday doing research with David, using the most teenage resource available.

* * *

><p>"This show is insipid," Wes stated flatly, for what had to be at least the eighth or ninth time. "Wouldn't it be easier to observe current fashions at the mall? Or we could go to Breadsticks—there are always students there."<p>

David frowned. "Wes, Teenagers take their cues from social media. _Jersey Shore_ is social media. Ergo, we're watching."

Wes sighed dramatically. "But it doesn't even have a plot, and the acting is horrifying," he griped, admittedly somewhat petulantly. "And I keep getting distracted every time the network censors the dialogue. Why would they even include so much profanity in the script, knowing that it would never be aired in its original form?"

David's patience was waning. "We're not supposed to be paying attention to the characters, two-dimensional as they may be," he pointed out, yet again. "We're supposed to be paying attention to their clothing."

"What clothing?" Wes retorted. "David, I'm sorry, but nothing we've seen so far in the past three hours—which I desperately would like back, if you please—would pass muster even under McKinley's generously entitled 'Dress Code'."

He slammed his notebook shut with such force that the popcorn bowl next to him rattled dangerously. "This program is so inane that my corneas are about to resign in protest. I can't do this anymore," he declared. "Why is it so important that we go to McKinley _now?_ Can't we start with something easier, like figuring out why Breadsticks is seemingly the only restaurant in all of Lima?"

David shot him a look that was patently disappointed. "You know why. And Lima had a fast food restaurant as well, but it was shut down last year over an alarming number of health code violations. Something about employees peeing in the fryers. Wes," he sighed, "we've been over this. We can't wear our uniforms to McKinley; we'd be killed within minutes. We can't wear our own clothes, because we would stand out for certain, and we don't have Lettermen jackets like all of Kurt's friends do. Finding something cool enough to avoid bodily harm, but not so cool as to attract unnecessary attention, is the only way. I know you're having doubts, but I need to know: are you with me or not?"

Damn David and his horrible, guilt-inducing, logic-utilizing speeches. Wes regretted every second he had spent encouraging David to take public speaking sophomore year.

"Of course I'm with you," he sighed. "But I'm not watching any more MTV. Besides, this show is set in New Jersey. We're in Ohio. I'm not certain that their fashion will necessarily translate."

David squinted at the muted screen. "I hadn't thought of that," he admitted slowly. "Perhaps we _should_ go to the mall—we'd probably have to go and pick out new outfits there anyway."

And finally, mercifully, David turned off the television.

If Wes were the crying sort, tears of joy would have been wept.

* * *

><p>Three days later upon their arrival in Lima, however, Wes's tears would have been indicative of intense mortification. "<em>David<em>," he hissed, following the other boy across the parking lot. "_David, my pants are falling down_."

David tugged uncomfortably at his artfully ripped, slightly-too-large jeans. "That's the style," he argued, sounding unconvinced himself. "Stop pulling them up, you're supposed to leave the top 2 ½ inches of your boxers exposed."

Wes scowled darkly. "I'm going to be exposing _the entirety of my boxers_ momentarily if you don't give me back my belt," he complained moodily. "The fact that we've made it the two blocks from the grocery store without a severe wardrobe crisis _astounds_ me."

They had spent the tail end of the drive from Westerville debating whether or not to park Wes's Jetta at McKinley, or whether the shiny blue sedan would attract less attention parked off campus. In the end, it was decided that a less conspicuous entrance (complete with not accidently taking someone's parking spot and causing an incident) won out over being poised for a quick getaway.

Inconspicuous, however, flew right out the window the fifth time Wes tripped over the hem of his pants, once again inadvertently pulling out the laces on his obnoxiously oversized sneakers.

David had the decency to be polite. "Do you want me to double knot those for you?" he asked kindly. Wes nodded, swallowing a thousand acerbic remarks about how what he _wanted_ was to be back in his oxfords, and allowed David to retie the laces.

Only after scanning the parking lot to ensure that there were no athletes in the immediate vicinity, of course. Between Kurt, the internet, and his pilfered student files, Wes had gathered that sincerity and fellowship had no place at McKinley, and that the parking lot and locker rooms had a tendency to represent Ground Zero as far as semi-violent incidents went.

Getting inside the school itself was substantially easier than they had predicted. David, anticipating security guards—or at minimum a couple of burly hall monitors—had forged some halfway decent student IDs (Wes and David were now Greg and Mason, respectively). An unnecessary precaution, it seemed, as the hallways were nearly devoid of both teachers and students.

Wes observed his surroundings casually, trying to keep a suitably bored expression on his face lest anyone glance over at him. "What period is it?" he asked quietly, taking in the poorly maintained bulletin boards, endless rows of lockers, and obscenely oversized display case.

David checked his watch discreetly. "We're nearing the end of third period," he murmured back. "We have approximately 67 minutes until the start of fifth."

Wes nodded in understanding. Back when their trip was still in its planning stages (and the infiltration of McKinley High seemed like the high school equivalent of breaking into an impenetrable fortress) David and Wes had agreed that their best chance of escape was to exit with all of the other students at lunchtime. It would, unfortunately, increase the odds of them getting noticed and/or targeted by a vicious Lima native, but it would also substantially lessen their chances of being given detention by a teacher at a school they didn't even attend. Which would inevitably blow their cover wide open, and while the McKinley teachers seemed to be a fairly incompetent group as a whole, Wes wasn't willing to take the risk that one of them would have the wherewithal to call the police.

And given some of the stories he'd heard about McKinley? It was entirely possible some of the staff members kept hunting rifles on school property.

Wes liked being able to sit down.

He was about to suggest to David that they find a hiding spot until the bell rang, and possibly tease him affably about his rather liberal definition of the word 'approximately', when a few familiar faces in a photo inside the display case caught his eye. "David," he hissed quietly, mindful of his volume in the nearly empty hall.

"David, all of these trophies and memorabilia are for the cheerleading squad."

David lit up, following Wes's train of thought. "Is Kurt in there?" he asked eagerly, joining Wes in peering through the glass.

Scanning his way from one end of the case to the other, Wes finally found a picture of Warbler Kurt, looking extremely youthful with his more boyish haircut and men's uniform, pinned to the side of a very tall, track-suited woman. He was smiling in the clearly-candid shot, confetti raining down upon both figures.

Before Wes could point out the glossy photograph to David, however, the boy grabbed his sleeve. "Look at this," he whispered frantically, pointing to a set of captioned yearbook pages that were artfully displayed on one of the lower shelves. Prominently featured in all of them was a vaguely familiar blonde girl, definitely recognizable as one of Kurt's friends.

"Junior Quinn Fabray, Varsity Captain," Wes read out loud. "David, what—"

"Varsity Captain for _three years_," David interrupted, clarifying. "She was Captain the year before last, for half the season last year, and then again this year until she quit."

Wes stared. "How on earth do you even remember all of that?" he asked, nonplussed.

David shrugged. "You told me half of it," he reminded Wes dismissively. "But that's not the point. Wes, she was Varsity Captain as a _freshman_. Do you have any idea how difficult it is for a freshman to even get onto a Varsity athletic team, let alone one as popular as the Cheerios? How did she possibly manage to get to be the _Captain?_"

Wes paused thoughtfully. "Maybe they have different standards here," he suggested, sorting through everything he could remember about sports at McKinley. "Kurt's stepbrother was the Varsity Quarterback last year, when he was a sophomore."

David looked skeptical. "And the older players were perfectly okay taking orders from an underclassman?" he wondered. "And McKinley's social scene revolved around the popularity of a group of _sophomores_?"

Wes frowned. "You know, you do make a good point," he allowed. "Everyone I've heard of or talked to at this school seems to be in the same grade. Aren't there any older or younger students around?" He took another look at Quinn Fabray's picture in the case. "And I never thought to ask Mike—if Quinn was removed from the squad last year for being pregnant—"

"At sixteen," David supplied helpfully.

"—at sixteen, which _does _happen and is only significant within the context of the rest of this incredible weirdness, how was she allowed to become the Captain again this year?"

"A question I ask myself on a regular basis, Masahashi," a strident, derisive tone answered. "I think in the end, it was her pathetic willingness to do anything to get back into my good graces, including spilling the dirt on Sandbags McBoobjob, that sealed the deal."

Wes felt David's shaking hand grip his sleeve, and he fought the urge to grab his friend and run. Because standing in front of them, looking as tall and blonde and intimidating as she did in her picture, was the woman who had committed more atrocities against Ohio youth than any woman in the history of the nation:

Coach Sue Sylvester.

It was entirely possible that Wes's short life flashed before his eyes.

Ignoring—or perhaps more likely, not noticing—Wes and David's comically huge, fright-filled eyes, Coach Sylvester continued to pontificate. "Sure, having Santana in a position of power was far more useful—she's more skilled at delivering blows to the kidney without leaving unsightly bruising, for one thing, and it was an easy way to throw off certain left wing groups who would try to undermine my thrice-yearly budget increases by claiming I was a racist," she explained with the slightest tinge of irritation. "But I regret nothing."

David's grip on Wes tightened.

Coach Sylvester inspected them, an expression of mild disdain written all over her features. "You know, when I had the school wired for sound and rigged with alarms that would immediately notify me when anyone dared to mention Porcelain's name, I expected the resulting twice-weekly bloodbaths to be more of a challenge," she told them frankly. "But you two are the most disappointingly fragile opponents yet. You,"—she rounded on David—"look like you're about three seconds away from wetting your pants in sheer terror."

David swallowed, but managed to retain his continence against dire prediction.

Coach Sylvester eyed Wes, her gaze lingering on his awful sneakers and too-large pants. "And you. I suspect that if Porcelain were here, he could verbally eviscerate you and have blood pouring out your ears before you could further sully his already-stupid looking school blazer with your ineptitude."

_Kurt, _Wes realized suddenly, _she's talking about Kurt._

David had evidently come to the same conclusion. "We didn't mean any disrespect to Kurt, Coach Sylvester," he began bravely, the quivering in his voice only slightly noticeable. "We were—"

Coach Sylvester cut him off. "You'll find that I'm not particularly interested in whatever you have to stutter," she informed them mildly. "And since I doubt the two of you have enough intelligence or physical prowess between you to harm Porcelain or kidnap him for ransom, the time and kerosene it would take to properly incinerate you is more than Sue Sylvester feels you're worth today."

It was possibly the most beautiful, insulting sentence that had ever been directed at Wes.

Coach Sylvester checked her watch. "You have two minutes to be out of my sight," she ordered. "My personal advanced screening of Shark Week is scheduled to begin in ten minutes, and my notes and directives on how to improve their killing capacity aren't going to write themselves."

When Wes and David didn't immediately move—likely due to pure shock, Wes reasoned later—Coach Sylvester narrowed her eyes. "Go to class or something," she commanded. "Unless you're supposed to be in Spanish, in which case you should go break something expensive and explain to the proper authorities that William Schuester wasn't providing you with adequate supervision.

"Your two minutes began when I started talking," she added. "Forty three seconds won't get you far."

David had run track until the end of the previous season, and years of soccer had kept Wes in decent athletic shape. In their entire collective memory, neither one had ever sprinted as quickly as they did at that moment.

* * *

><p>There was no time for Wes and David to decompress and process the incident, or even to catch their breath: the bell rang as soon as the pair rounded the corner, making Wes jump embarrassingly and encouraging David to let out a startled yelp. They were forced to fake relative composure, however, as students began spilling into the hall and walking past and around them.<p>

Wes looked to David, unsure of what to do. David had insisted that they were there to Passively Observe the Goings-On At McKinley Without Revealing Their True Identities, but had never actually elaborated on what that would entail. For a moment, it seemed David wasn't entirely certain about what his plan of action consisted of either. After a second or two, though, he shrugged his shoulders at Wes and started walking down the hall in an easy, nonthreatening manner. Wes followed suit, attempting to watch the students around him without _looking _like he was watching them.

It was a marvelous, if eye-watering, plan for about the first thirty seconds. Then they turned yet another corner.

Because there at the next bank of lockers stood Finn, with Puck the Mohawk Guy. Without thinking, Wes grabbed David roughly and pulled him through the closest doorway.

And as far as Wes was concerned, there was no middle ground: it was either an overwhelmingly good or an excruciatingly poor sign that David didn't protest in the slightest, but merely allowed himself to be pulled and released at Wes's discretion, no questions asked.

Of course, that sort of trust in a friendship was wholly contingent on not misusing it. "New Directions sighting," Wes explained darkly, after releasing David's arm and patting it apologetically. David raised an eyebrow, and Wes bristled slightly. "I may have overreacted somewhat, but Finn would have recognized me," he defended himself.

"Duh. He sees you, like, all the time," a female voice pointed out behind them. Wes whirled around, and his heart sank. Beside him, he heard David inhale sharply.

Standing there in front of them was Brittany Pierce.

Oh, God. They were going to die.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 5.2 in what will be a 5-6 chapter story.

The conclusion to Chapter 5! (And, really, to the story!) It's been a long time coming, so thank you all for being so patient and sticking with me through rewrites and computer crashes. And if you can hang on just a little bit longer, I'll be posting The Greatest Epilogue I've Ever Written early next week.

Keep being awesome, you fine, fabulous people.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Five, Part II: Age Ain't Nothin' But a Number<strong>

Wes was getting really tired of being scared shitless. David, he suspected, felt the same.

Brittany stared at them, her expression utterly blank. Wes and David stared back helplessly, waiting for the proverbial ax to fall. (At least, Wes sincerely hoped it was proverbial—it didn't look like Brittany was carrying any medieval weaponry on her person, but Santana's hidden arsenal had been a surprise, as well.)

After what seemed like an eternity, Brittany tilted her head slightly to the side, zeroing in on David. "When did you get here?" she asked, far more neutrally than the question merited.

David glanced at Wes, seeking—and not receiving, to Wes's shame—guidance. "About twelve minutes ago," he answered honestly.

Brittany looked pleased. "I didn't think you talked," she told him. "Santana said you were training to be a mime."

David's mouth opened slightly, and Wes couldn't decide if he was more confused, offended, or abashed. As insults went though, Wes considered, it wasn't patently inaccurate—while David had no past or current aspirations to mime-hood, the only time Santana and Brittany had actually _met _David had been at Kurt's old house after Wes and Blaine had extracted him, half paralyzed with terror, from the basement.

It had not been one of David's more verbose days.

Brittany was still staring. "Does Santana know you're here?" she pressed, and David shuddered horribly.

"No, no she doesn't," he answered quickly," and I would be incredibly grateful if you didn't tell her."

Brittany's expression didn't budge, and Wes began to realize how utterly screwed they were. Brittany didn't look like she was about to call in the cavalry, so to speak, but she also had no clear reason not to: she had caught Wes and David trespassing on school property for unclear but likely dishonorable reasons (if they were truly pure of intent, they would have been wearing their uniforms), the week that they were to compete against each other at Regionals, no less. What made the already unfortunate circumstances markedly worse was that it had been _Brittany _who discovered them—Brittany, who was the only member of New Directions who was consistently liked by everyone, and the extent of whose evil genius was as of yet unclear.

In short, they had been apprehended by the one person who could (and probably would) bring the wrath of God and McKinley down on them, and do it in such a manner that Wes and David, for all their nervous apprehension, wouldn't even see coming.

Wes wanted to go home.

Brittany looked at him curiously. "Why aren't you with Tina?" she asked suddenly.

Wes started, more than a little puzzled at the sudden non-segue. "Tina?" he asked politely.

Brittany nodded. "You and Tina were totally going to get it on in the Astrology classroom, she said."

Wes choked. He and Tina were going to—

He and _Tina_, who was definitely Mike's girlfriend? Tina, who couldn't possibly know he was even in Lima yet, and certainly hadn't seemed like the type to randomly make out with acquaintances (even Asian ones), particularly when she was already seeing someone? And what kind of school taught _Astrology?_

It occurred to Wes, as David was rubbing soothing circles on his back while he regained his breath, that Brittany was likely either speaking in some form of code, or was simply outright toying with him.

Even knowing that, her mind games were scarily effective.

Wes decided that his and David's best chance of walking away relatively unscathed was to humor Brittany and play along—perhaps this was some sort of test. He straightened back up, noting with unease that even his sudden coughing fit was insufficient to crack Brittany's perfect deadpan façade. "Right, Tina and I," he lied, with less smoothness than he would have liked. "About that. We…decided to hold off on, 'getting it on', temporarily. _At school _seemed like an inappropriate location."

Brittany's expression shifted, just slightly, to something like mild disappointment. "Santana says to ignore everything that Rachel says," she lectured evenly, before turning to confide in David. "That's exactly what Rachel said when she caught us making out in the Celibacy Club meeting room last year," she whispered audibly, gesturing to include herself and Wes.

Wes's airway was immediately re-compromised.

By the time Wes had quit sputtering stupidly and was ready to defend himself, Brittany had picked up her books from a nearby table and was smiling brightly. "I have to go to the library now," she informed them. "See you at practice."

And with that, she strolled out the door.

* * *

><p>In his rational mind, Wes knew that he ought to be feeling a profound sense of relief that Brittany had gone, and that he and David were mercifully still intact. Unfortunately, his rational mind had thrown its metaphorical hands in the air and jumped ship some time ago, leaving Wes with little else but anxiety and something approaching panic.<p>

"David, I've absolutely never made out with Brittany," he protested quickly. "I didn't even know her last year, you know that. And why would she think that Tina and I are sleeping together? Do you think that she truly believes that, or is this some sort of elaborate setup, in which she's secretly monitoring my reactions?" He paled dramatically. "Oh God, what if there's a hidden camera somewhere, and she's been filming us this whole time? What if she shows it to Mike or Tina?"

David patiently allowed Wes's paranoid babbling run itself down. "Wes," he said finally, "why would Brittany say she was going to the library? _We're already in the library._"

Wes observed his surroundings for the first time. David was right—they were most assuredly in the library. The library that Brittany claimed to be going to when she left, which meant that she could have actually gone anywhere. Which, to be entirely fair, could have been true no matter what she had told them, but specifically picking the library could only mean that Brittany wanted them to know that she was lying.

"I think I need to sit down," Wes whimpered hoarsely. David nodded fervently in agreement.

* * *

><p>There were very few students in the library for Wes and David to Passively Observe. Which was fine, given that Wes didn't really feel capable of anything more complicated than sitting quietly in his seat and practicing his pranayama anyway. And, being a library, there were certain sources of information available to them besides the students.<p>

"I grabbed the last three years, do you have a preference?" David asked deferentially, holding up the stack of yearbooks he had fetched from the shelves.

Wes shrugged indifferently, and was consequently handed the 2010-11 book. "What's a 'thunderclap'?" he asked, once again feeling confused as he began flipping through the pages. "And why is this year's yearbook out already? Aren't yearbooks typically published at the end of the year?"

It was David's turn to shrug. "Perhaps the school receives a discount for ordering them during the off season," he suggested. "It sounds as though the principal—whoa."

"What is it?" Wes asked quickly, leaning over to see what had caused David to cut himself off. And…

"'Whoa' indeed," Wes agreed. There in front of them was what was barely recognizable as New Directions' club photograph from the previous year. It was difficult to identify who was actually in the picture, however, given that it had been heavily defaced with multiple permanent markers. Nearly everyone in the shot had been gifted with some sort of unnatural facial hair—even the girls—and several members were sporting blackened teeth and ridiculous hairdos.

"Check yours," David prompted, and Wes flipped hastily through his edition until he found the latest Glee club picture. It, too, had been vandalized.

"Have I mentioned yet today how incredibly grateful I am not to attend this school?" Wes wondered aloud.

"You haven't, but consider it noted," David answered, already back at work. "Look at Kurt, he looks like he's about fourteen in this picture," he commented, holding up the page so that Wes could see Kurt's individual picture.

It was true—Warbler Kurt had done a remarkable amount of aging in the past year. "I wonder if he'd be in the book this year," Wes pondered, slowly flicking back toward the 'H's' in his book.

He became slightly distracted, however, at a particular snapshot in the 'P's'. "Is it me, or does that Puck guy look far too old to be in high school?" he asked David idly, lingering on the Mohawk and trademark scowl in the school picture.

"Oh definitely," David agreed absently. "Look, I found another picture of Kurt." Wes leaned over again with interest to see a photo depicting McKinley's parking lot. The angle of the shot was a bit awkward, but that was definitely 10th grade Kurt climbing into the driver's seat of his car.

Along with what appeared to be half the Glee club. "David," Wes asked with a frown, "when is Kurt's birthday?"

David thought for a moment. "I'm not sure precisely," he admitted. "Sometime toward the beginning of the school year, though. Why?"

Wes pointed at the picture. "This was taken last year, so Kurt would have been sixteen at the time." David looked at him blankly. Wes elaborated. "Beyond the obvious question of how he would have managed to fit that many people in his car at once, a sixteen year old driver in Ohio isn't allowed to transport more than one non-family member at a time."

David raised an eyebrow, examining the picture again. "That's true, isn't it?" he mused. "Well, Kurt's dad is a mechanic, perhaps there's a loophole for that sort of thing."

"David, I've read the Ohio BMV handbook seven times," Wes stated flatly. "There are no exemptions for the mechanically inclined."

David didn't argue. He knew how Wes felt about handbooks.

He did, however, attempt a distraction. "Look up Santana," he directed, tapping Wes's yearbook as he began turning the pages of his own. "I want to see something."

Wes was still bothered by Kurt and his flagrant disrespect for the rules of the road, but he dutifully capitulated to David's demand. "What are we looking for?" he asked tiredly, scanning photos until he found Santana's picture.

She was smiling. It was creepy.

David pushed the previous year's book over so that it rested on the table between the two of them, opened to the correct page. "Coach Sylvester implied that Santana had…had some work done," he explained awkwardly. "It's probably not true, since I can't imagine any parent would allow their underage child to have plastic surgery, but…I have to admit I'm somewhat curious."

Wes was suddenly, inexplicably, curious himself.

He and David looked back and forth between the two pictures silently, giving the matter the full and undivided attention that it deserved. After all, a young woman's reputation was on the line, and it wouldn't do to conduct an investigation that was anything less than painstakingly meticulous.

"I can't really tell," David said finally. "They look the same to me."

"That's because you're not looking at them right, Prep-School McDouchecanoe," a voice behind them snapped back testily.

Perhaps it was because it was the third time in less than an hour that Wes had been snuck up on and ambushed, and he was starting to become conditioned to the visceral combination of adrenaline and pure dread. Or maybe he was merely feeling fatalistic, nerves shot after endless weeks of reacting to any mention of McKinley, Lima, or New Directions with an immediate sense of impending doom. Either way, rather than jump or shriek girlishly, Wes and David merely turned, slowly and resignedly, in their seats as one unit to face the owner of the aforementioned possibly-enhanced breasts: Santana Lopez.

Santana Lopez, who was looking at them with a murderous expression on her face.

Well, crap.

* * *

><p>Rather than stringing them from a bookshelf by their own intestines, however, Santana smiled dangerously and pulled out her phone. Clicking a few buttons and holding it up to her ear, she casually lifted her right leg and placed the heel of her shoe on David's thigh, directly above his femoral artery. "I've got them," she smirked into the phone, as David started to sweat. "Still in the library. Yeah, they're not going anywhere, are you, boys?" she asked in cruel amusement, smiling predatorily at Wes.<p>

For a single, self-serving second, Wes considered attempting to escape—it wasn't like Santana could simultaneously arrest David's circulatory system and chase after him, after all, and it was far more likely that he could call for some sort of help if he made it out of the building.

Santana chose that second to apply the slightest bit of weight on David's pressure point, making David hiss involuntarily and ending Wes's feverish plotting.

It didn't take long for the rest of New Directions to arrive, and the relative silence of the library meant that Wes, David, and Santana could hear them coming long before they entered the room.

"…knew those punks looked familiar," someone was grousing, while another voice—Mike, Wes recognized—was pleading their case. "Wes seemed like a decent guy," he argued, "they probably have a good reason for being here. Did anyone even ask them?"

"I did," Brittany replied, "but they seemed a little confused. Matt can talk now."

Everyone ignored her.

"As admirable as it is that you're standing up for your fellow countryman,"—Wes couldn't help the groan that slipped out when he realized that the speaker was the incredibly long-winded brunette—"we cannot discount the timing of their sudden 'visit'. Regionals are in four days, and I refuse to be colored by Mike's Asian Persuasion and fail to investigate the situation properly."

Tina scoffed. "Do you even notice when you say offensive things anymore?" she asked.

If the girl had an answer, she didn't have a chance to give it. "Rachel's all kinds of rude," another girl chimed in, "but she could be right. I'm meeting Kurt and Blaine for lunch in half an hour, and nobody said anything about the Warbler Brothers being in town."

Wes felt the blood drain out of his face. It hadn't occurred to him that Kurt also had the day off from school, and might come to see his friends at McKinley—and judging from David's panicked expression, neither had he.

"Should we call him?" someone asked. Wes squeezed his eyes shut, hoping against hope that—

"Nah," Finn answered, and Wes let out a sigh of relief, "leave them alone. They're singing a duet at Regionals, and Kurt said they'd be practicing at our house all day, since there's nobody home and they can be as loud as they want."

Santana snorted. David shot her a disapproving look but, even under the circumstances, Wes had to smile proudly at his Junior Warblers' dedication.

He didn't have long to smile—New Directions chose that moment to make their entrance, filtering in groups through the wide, open doorway. Mike was looking at Wes quizzically, and Brittany smiled brightly, but the rest of the club looked rather displeased to see them.

The brunette girl—Rachel—Wes had extrapolated—was the first to speak. "I'd like to take this opportunity to inform you that we, as a club, have extensive experience in dealing with spies and, furthermore, do not condone such deplorable tactics in what should be an unbiased, merit based competition," she announced. "So if you've illegally taken any notes, pictures, or videos, you should just hand them over now."

David raised an eyebrow. "We didn't take anything. But you sent Kurt to spy on us months ago," he pointed out. "And didn't you sneak into the auditorium at Carmel, like, half a dozen times last year?"

Rachel flushed, but maintained her scowl. "That was different," she insisted shrilly. "And stop making this about me, when we're supposed to be interrogating you."

David appeared as though he was ready to argue back. Luckily, someone presumably sane took over. An incredibly blonde boy in a letterman jacket—Wes recognized him, but couldn't recall a name—held his hands out in a peaceful gesture. "Look, we're gonna cut you guys some slack," he offered, making eye contact first with David, than Wes. "Nobody's seen you anywhere near the choir room, and Mike and Finn said that you're friends with Kurt."

Wes nodded gratefully at Mike, who nodded back solemnly. Tina wrapped an arm around his bicep. "But that doesn't mean we're letting you go," she stated bluntly. "You two have a lot of explaining to do."

David and Wes exchanged worried glances as the group gathered around them in a half circle, trapping them between the club and the table and effectively blocking any potential exits. Wes knew David was anxious about the same thing he was—how much did New Directions already know? Finn and Mike had vouched for their good character, so they must not have gotten too upset that Wes's conduct had been rather more inquisitive than was socially acceptable. They couldn't know about them breaking into Blaine's computer, and Kurt would have no reason to mention that Wes had seen some of their performance photos, or that David had been present when he had received some of the latest gossip. But if Brittany knew (as she likely did) about the stolen files…

Puck the Mohawk Guy had apparently been elected Bad Cop, because he stood in front of the two of them looking, frankly, petrifying. He nodded to Santana—who was actually _filing her nails_, Wes noted in utter disbelief—and she released David's leg with a reluctant sigh, before sauntering over to join the others.

"First things first," Puck demanded as David bent over with a strangled gasp and began massaging the rapidly swelling heelmark through his jeans. "We've heard a lot of crazy shit about Gay Boy Academy, and you're gonna explain it to us. Understand?"

Wes, who was intelligent enough to refrain from correcting him, chose instead to nod quietly.

"First of all, where the hell is Westerville?" Puck wanted to know. "Because you're all supposed to be, like, two hours away from Lima, but you people are always here—Pixie came to visit all the time before Kurt even transferred, and even now he practically lives in the Navigator. And I don't drink fruity coffee drinks, but everyone else says that they can't even turn around in the Lima Bean without tripping over a dorky uniform."

"And we've checked—the Lima Bean is definitely in Lima," Quinn supplied helpfully.

"And you really need to settle this for us, because we're seeing a lot of conflicting information on this one: Where do you people live?" Kurt's friend Mercedes asked. "Because we all thought Dalton was a boarding school, since Kurt's always bitching about not getting to wear his own clothes at all during the week, and he's there at night so often, and he and Finn didn't see each other at all between their parents' wedding and Sectionals. But then all of the sudden the Incredible Hulk is getting bedside warm milk deliveries every night, and he says that Kurt and Blaine were at his house after school last week."

"And I don't know if he stays at the house at night or not, okay? I need a lot of sleep!" Finn protested loudly, and not without frustration. Wes gathered from the several eye-rolls and dubious glances that Finn had already been harangued on the subject before.

The boy in the wheelchair rolled forward slightly. "Also, we'd really like to know how you've managed to con the school administration into letting you operate without a director," he confided quietly.

"And what is with that stupid yellow bird Kurt's been carting around everywhere?" Mercedes demanded. "You know you can't just force pets onto people, right? I know I'm not the only one who thinks that's insane."

The room was silent as everyone stared expectantly at Wes and David, who, for their part, were thoroughly taken aback.

Well, nearly silent.

"Kurt says you invited a bunch of girls to a creepy abandoned warehouse for a sex party," Brittany complained. "Why wasn't I invited?"


	8. Chapter 8

The Greatest Epilogue I've Ever Written to a 5 ½ part story. Because that's not confusing _at all._

We've reached the end! I've had a fantastical time writing this, and I hope you've enjoyed reading along at least half as much. I thought about writing a lovely, poignant Author's Note to close the series out, but I'm spending 18 of the next 40 hours in skill testing, so all my eloquence has skipped town for the weekend.

Also! Tuesday is my birthday. There may be something going up that day, depending on how the next few days go-slash-how my hangover is treating me. Either way, kindly send cake.

And lastly, I don't own anything but a very worn notebook.

* * *

><p><strong>Epilogue: that it's all just a little bit of history repeating…<strong>

Wes had no recollection of how he made it back to Dalton. He did remember crawling into bed, his mirrored reflection looking painfully disheveled, as David wearily called Thad to activate the Warbler Wellness Quarantine for of the two of them before climbing in beside him.

The Warbler Wellness Quarantine was a brilliant tactical achievement standardized by the previous year's Warbler's Council, following an unfortunate incident in which a sophomore had sneezed on Blaine two weeks before Sectionals. After Blaine's skin tone had lost its violently orange hue (apparently, rapidly consuming 174 Emergen-C packets was not without consequences—Jeff and Flint spent _days_ sputtering apologies for encouraging such rampant stupidity) it was decided that perhaps it would be best if there were standing protocols in place dictating appropriate behavior in the face of illness, to avoid such another dire situation.

Now that Wes and David were under Quarantine, then, they were confined to their current location—Wes's room—for 48 hours. A quartet of Warblers (selected from those without solos or upcoming auditions) would be the only ones allowed to enter the premises until they were deemed decontaminated—taking turns donning face masks and gloves to deliver rehearsal notes, homework, and wholesome, nourishing meals four times per day. No other Warbler was allowed to enter within 200 feet of their location without written consent from the senior-most Warbler Authority; Thad, in this case.

Though a few of the teachers thought the system somewhat militant, it was met with approval by the majority of the Dalton faculty, including the school physicians—not a single Warbler had managed to pass on a cold or infection since its institution.

Wes briefly considered that activating the WWQ was a slight overreaction to the showdown at McKinley. When the first two Warblers to bring him rich vegetable soup and orange juice went pale at the sight of him, however, he concluded that the somewhat extreme measure was indeed justified.

24 hours after returning to the sanctuary of Dalton, both Wes and David were feeling markedly improved. David had quit twitching and reacting to every minor sound with exaggerated alarm, and was contentedly watching NOVA while Wes read through the minutes from that afternoon's Warblers meeting.

Oddly enough, neither was yet feeling recovered enough to attempt their homework assignments.

Replacing the annotated minutes in their manila folder—they had two more pre-Regionals rehearsals, and Jeff was going to nail that footwork _if it killed him_—Wes spotted an envelope on the tray that he had previously overlooked. A yellow post-it note was affixed to the front—"Arrived yesterday, let me know if it's serious," Thad's precise handwriting indicated.

Wes peeled the note off. The letter was addressed _To Wes and David, c/o the Dalton Academy Warblers_, with the school's address printed underneath. The postmark was from Los Angeles, California.

Wes didn't know anyone in Los Angeles, California, nor had he ever received a letter that didn't bear his surname on the envelope. "David, turn that off," he instructed quietly, grabbing a letter opener from his desk drawer to slit the missive open.

The letter itself was several pages long, with scribbles, crossed out sentences, and sloppy addendums in several places. David raised an eyebrow, but settled in next to Wes in order to read along as Wes read it aloud.

"_Dear Wes and David," _the letter began,

"_I know this must seem kind of weird, getting a letter from a guy you don't know and have probably never even heard of. If it helps, I feel kind of weird writing it. My therapist thinks that it would be cathartic, though, and I guess if I'm honest, I like the idea of being able to do something helpful._

_Ok, I've just read back through the last few sentences, and so far I kind of sound like a nutjob. Maybe I am. But please, just keep reading—I promise that what I have to say is worth your time. I'll start at the beginning:_

_Up until last year, I used to live in Lima, Ohio. I guess in hindsight, it's pretty obvious that there's something…off, about Lima, but I guess it's not as noticeable when you grow up with it. Or maybe I was just too young to realize that it wasn't exactly a typical town. Either way, things were relatively normal until the year before last. That's when I started my freshman year at William McKinley High School._

_I guess your first day of high school is supposed to be exciting and nerve-wracking no matter where you go, but I'm fairly certain that most first days don't involve dozens of students getting slushies thrown at them, only for the entire school to act like it was no big thing. And I mean the _entire_ school—none of the teachers said anything, nobody's parents complained; even the floors were back to normal after a few minutes, even though I'd never actually _seen _a janitor (unless you count the week and a half Mr. Schue had the job, but that's another story). I tried to talk to my parents about how freaky it all was, but they just laughed and said that it was just the same as when they went to McKinley, and that I'd be fine since I had made the football team during August tryouts. _

_Nobody seemed to care, or even notice, that the slushies were everywhere, or that jocks through people into dumpsters, or that the teachers were barely competent in the subjects they were supposed to be teaching. After about two weeks, one of the senior guys on the team pulled me aside, telling me that that was just the way it was at McKinley, and that if I didn't shut up and stop asking questions, people were going to start throwing drinks at me too, football player or not._

_I shut up and stopped asking questions._

_That didn't mean I stopped noticing things, though: the way Noah Puckerman continued to pass math, English, and history, despite the fact that he skipped all three every day to go hang out in the nurse's office. The way nearly everyone in the whole school seemed to fit some sort of high school archetype—jock, geek, slut, whatever. The way that there never seemed to be any snow on campus, even though we lived in Ohio. Nobody ever wanted to talk about it._

_Eventually, I just stopped talking altogether._

_Sophomore year, things got increasingly weirder. Among other things, Puck decided that I should join the Glee club with him, despite the fact that he hadn't heard me speak in over seven months. The daily insanity of the New Directions (and seriously, could Mr. Schue have picked a more unintentionally raunchy name?), compounded with the freak show that was McKinley (even worse now that I was a sophomore, and we seemed to command all the social attention in the school) started really messing with my head. I started acting out in ways that I'm not proud of, even landing myself in the hospital once with a spider in my ear._

_Don't ask._

_My parents made me go talk to Ms. Pillsbury, the guidance counselor, after that one. I had to explain everything to her—no easy task, since my voice was so rusty by that point—but she just got seriously distracted every time I mentioned Mr. Schue, and then cried for three hours when I accidently bumped into her pamphlet stand. Plus, her hospital-grade disinfectant gave me a rash._

_Talking to Ms. Pillsbury, however ineffective it was, helped remind me that I have a voice, and a right to be heard. Breaking a habit of silence that had been ingrained in me for so long (well over a year by that point) was difficult, though. I summoned up my courage for weeks before finally uttering a full, articulate sentence in front of all of New Directions._

_Nobody reacted at all. It was just another one of those 'quirky, charming' things that 'just sorta happen' at McKinley. I didn't try again._

_The last straw for me came at our Regionals competition last year, when Quinn Fabray, one of our members, went into early labor after our performance and had to be rushed to the hospital. Now, keep in mind that I have three younger siblings. I've never personally witnessed a birth, but I know that it takes hours, and that for a first time mother, a birth time of over ten hours is considered perfectly average._

_Quinn had her baby and we were all back in the auditorium within two hours of her water breaking backstage._

_For the rest of the year, I was in a haze. I don't remember what I did or said, just that suddenly it was June, and I didn't have to go to school. Instead, I could hang around Lima—eating at our one restaurant, or drinking coffee at our one coffee shop, or eating vegan-approved pepperoni pizza and bowling at our one bowling alley. _

_I may have gone a little nuts._

_When the end of August came around, I freaked out. I just couldn't face going back to that school for two more years. After three days, my parents called my uncle (he's a fireman) to come break down the bathroom door and take me home with him to see my aunt, who's a psychiatrist. After talking to me, she deduced that McKinley wasn't a healthy environment for me to work through my issues, and it was decided that I would stay in LA and attend St Carmichael's Holistic School, a boarding facility that specializes in emotionally troubled, but otherwise capable, students._

_I hardly keep in touch with anyone from McKinley, and nobody there knows where I really am—my paperwork all says that I transferred to Laurence Harley Men's Institute on a football scholarship. It didn't come as a shock that forging the appropriate documentation didn't take much more than a printer. I couldn't bring myself to tell anyone where I was really going—both out of embarrassment, and because I was afraid that Mr. Schue would rally the troops, and everyone would come to sing to me about the healing power of music, and encourage me to solve my problems through song._

_I've been here for several months, and I'm making good progress. I miss seeing my family every day, but I know that they love me, and that St. C's is the best place for me to be right now. The faculty and students are really supportive—each teacher makes a point to call on me at least once a day, to get me used to speaking in public again, and the other students even instituted a campus-wide ban on slushies after I shared my story in group therapy._

_So that's my story, and I'm sure by now you've wondered several times why I've shared it with you. Well, my older brother is a freshman at OSU, and the last time he was home for the weekend, his best friend (still a senior at McKinley) told him a hilarious story about how a couple of private school kids that his cousin knew had paid him to steal school records from Ms. Pillsbury; records most notably related to the Glee club. Given my situation, my brother was concerned that someone was trying to get to me personally, and did a little investigating. It took him a while, but he eventually got your names, your affiliation with Dalton Academy and the Warblers, and the fact that you were conducting your own investigation of Lima and McKinley._

_I'm not sure what you're trying to find out, but I wrote this letter, told you my story, as a warning—please, _please _quit while you're ahead. The longer you spend trying to make sense of McKinley, the more complicated it becomes, and the more questions it raises, and the more it gets under your skin until finally, you've locked yourself in a bathroom for three days and your family has to break down the door to get you out. I never wanted to be a cautionary tale, but I don't want anyone else's sanity to be compromised because of Lima the way mine was. If you want to know about the Glee club specifically, this I _can_ tell you—they're good people, for all their obliviousness and frequent bouts of poor judgment. Sure, Rachel is both delusional and self-centered, and Brittany is dumber than a particularly well-worn bag of hammers, but if you're worried about them doing anything nefarious, you don't have to be._

_If you've made it this far in my letter without quitting, thank you. I have my fingers crossed for you, and I wish you both the best._

_With Regards,_

_Matt Rutherford._

_PS- If you want to get in touch with me for any reason, you can write to me at Laurence Harley c/o Ken Tanaka, the gym teacher there. He had his own McKinley-related reasons for leaving Lima, and can be trusted to redirect any communication._

* * *

><p>The room was silent for nearly ten minutes after Wes finished the postscript. "Didn't Brittany call you Matt, when we were there yesterday?" he asked finally.<p>

David thought about it, before nodding. "Yeah, she did," he affirmed. "Was he—I mean, this letter…wow. Do you remember seeing a Matt Rutherford in the yearbooks, or reading his name in any of the files?"

Wes shook his head. "I don't," he said slowly, "but I wasn't looking for him in particular, so it's entirely possible that I skimmed over it."

Things were quiet again for a few minutes. Then David sat up. "Wes," he asked, "why would he call Brittany dumb? And why would everyone ignore her, at McKinley, when she mentioned the name Matt?"

Wes stared. "You're seriously going to do this," he stated flatly.

David had the good grace to look slightly ashamed of himself, even in his determination. "It's just inconsistent, that's all," he explained. "Almost as if…"

He trailed off. Wes's frown deepened—he knew exactly what David wasn't saying. "No," he said, trying hard for a tone of finality. "Not possible."

David frowned back. "Not _likely,_" he corrected, "but certainly possible. Think about it—what better way to convince us to desist than to write us a fake letter from a McKinley survivor? Nobody said anything about Matt because Brittany made him up, and they knew about it."

Wes sighed deeply. "David. Brittany's subtlety is far more nuanced than that," he argued. "If she were to write us a fake letter, she wouldn't have referenced herself in it, and she certainly wouldn't have written such a blatant falsehood—there is no way she could have expected us to believe that anyone thought she was dumb."

"Unless she knew we would think that," David countered. "We have to consider all the possibilities, Wesley."

Wes considered the possibility that David was a moron.

And he was about to say so out loud, when David let out a sudden, strangled gasp, looking highly alarmed. "David, what is it? What's wrong?" he asked, grabbing David's shoulders, which shook slightly under his hands.

David swallowed. "I'm considering the possibility that Matt _is _real, but not in the way we first thought," he explained, voice hoarse. "Wes—what if Brittany isn't just an evil genius? What if she's a _mentally ill _evil genius? What if 'Matt' is an alternate personality, created by Brittany's brilliant-but-crazy mind? Think about it—'Matt can talk now?' She would have sent the letter a day or so beforehand. And someone as fantastically intelligent as Brittany _must_ have noticed all the McKinley-Lima insanity, and yet it doesn't seem to bother her; it plagues Matt instead."

David's eyes lit up as Wes listened warily, not without a great deal of concern. "And _everyone _is nice to Brittany," he continued feverishly, "even though everyone else in that school has been at the bottom of the social heap at some point. Because you can't be mean to a crazy person."

Wes felt weak-limbed. "What about Matt's brother?" he asked, and David paused momentarily.

"I'm not an expert, but if Brittany knew about the stolen files, then it stands to reason that Matt would have known as well," he reasoned slowly, "even if he didn't know _how _he knew." He looked at Wes expectantly.

Wes, who was at a loss. "Don't you think it sounds a bit…illogical?" he asked finally, gazing gently at David.

David was undeterred. "What about McKinley isn't illogical?" he answered back.

Wes had to admit, for all his previous comic-book caliber logic, David had made a reasonable point there.

"If your hypothesis is true—and I'm in no way saying that I'm convinced," he cautioned, "why would Matt send us a letter? And how? It's postmarked from _California._"

David brandished the letter. "_Forging the appropriate documentation didn't take much more than a printer," _he quoted solemnly. "Wes, it's all in here—so many clues just _waiting_ for us. And as for why…"

He swallowed. "As for why," he repeated, "the only reason I can think of that Brittany or her alternate would send us a letter warning us off the case is that we're learning too much. Wes," he emphasized, grabbing Wes's arm and looking at him with wide, intense eyes, "we've been gathering information for _months_, and only now is someone from the other side reaching out to us. If there truly is an explanation for everything that's happening at McKinley, then _we're getting close._"

Wes reached for his cell phone, in order to call Thad. He was going to need some extra time in Quarantine, and potentially some migraine medication.

The End?


End file.
